It's in your blood
by Stephyy.p
Summary: Luenda, the unknown daughter of a dead Death Eater finds herself living among Death Eaters after being orphaned she bonds with them and starts to enjoy her life again, but then they want her to become one...
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** So I had this idea that I really like to work out, however it's the first time I'm writing a fanfic so please go easy on me if you review. ㈴1 The story will be centred around my OC: Luenda, but all mentioned characters will all appear a little later in the story as well as a whole lot of unmentioned ones. Most (if not all) of them will turn out AU, although I'll try to keep them properly in character as much as possible. The story will be set at the beginning of book 5, however it doesn't take place anywhere near Grimmauld Place or Privet Drive.

I should also mention that this story will contain rape, violence, torture and sexual scenes. Some implied others explicit.

And last but not least: I don't own anything other than my OC, whom I hope you will like.

So finally: Enjoy! And please let me know what you think ㈴1

 **Change**

Luenda was reading in her bedroom that evening because her mother had one of her 'friends' over again. She hated when that happened and unfortunately it happened quite often. At least three times a week someone would come over and she would have to spend the next few hours upstairs in her bedroom. It wasn't that she didn't like spending time alone, it was the fact that she felt guilty about it all. If it hadn't been for her, her mother wouldn't be in this situation. She and her betrothed would have gotten married as planned, had a great time and have as many children as they liked later on in life.

Instead her mother had gotten pregnant with her at the age of 16 and her boyfriend had abandoned her. Her grandparents had been furious about it all and disowned their daughter in retaliation. She had had to make a living for herself ever since.

Before her birth her mother had been able to survive on badly payed for, crappy jobs no-one else wanted. Afterwards however she hadn't been able to find work again due to the fact that even with one of those jobs she couldn't afford childcare. Soon after her birth she found herself unable to pay the rent anymore and so the landlord had become the first of many 'friends'.

Her mother had been worried when a 6 month old Luenda had shown her first signs of magical ability by blowing up her crib in a fit of anger. She had soon become prone to accidentally blowing up things or setting them on fire or otherwise trash them whenever she was angry or upset. This tendency had led to more than a few visits to St. Mungo's and a need for a lot trips to the furnishing store resulting in even more 'friends' over the next few years. At the young age of 8 those accidental outbursts thankfully lessened dramatically as Luenda gained more and more control over her abilities. Her mother had taken that as the cue to start home-schooling her and had continued to do so for the past 6 years.

During her lessons her mother kept telling her how exceptionally gifted she was, but knowing absolutely no-one around her age Luenda couldn't be sure this was altogether true. Often times she thought her mother was only saying it because she felt bad about not having the funds to send her to Hogwarts like everyone else. Luenda didn't care about not being able to go, she didn't like crowds nor did she know how to make friends.

But tonight she felt there was change in the air. As if something was going to happen and her whole world would be turned upside down by one single act. After tonight she was sure nothing would ever be the same again.

It was quiet downstairs, too quiet. Usually the noise would carry up all the way to her bedroom leaving it near impossible for her to concentrate. But tonight she hadn't heard a sound for at least half an hour. She knew the 'friend' couldn't have left yet because she hadn't heard the front door slamming or the water running from her mother taking a shower.

It could be her mother had finally learned to use a silencing charm to keep the disturbing sounds away from her room, but Luenda doubted it. Something about the lack of noise just didn't sit right with her and after debating with herself for a while she decided the only way to find out would be to go downstairs. Before she did so however she listened intently at the keyhole, alert for any sound. She honestly didn't fancy running into her mother going all the way with some random guy who was paying to get her in the weirdest positions. Nothing could be heard though and resigned to the worst Luenda stepped out of her room into the hallway.

From here she picked up the sensation of a spell being used recently. This was odd given that the activities supposedly going on didn't require magic at all, but being a witch and living in a magical household it didn't really worry her either. What did worry her however was the sound of someones heavy breathing drifting up the stairs. Only one someones heavy breathing.

Heart thumping she made her way down the stairs as quietly as she possibly could. The sight that met her made her scream. A man covered in blood was thrusting himself in and out her mothers unresponsive body. At her scream the man jumped, bringing her mothers severely wounded and obviously death body into view.

Grinning the naked man turned to her, wand in hand. Again Luenda screamed and as she did so the man and every object in the house all caught fire. In a matter of seconds the air around her was full of thick, black smoke, causing her to pass out.

When she awoke a few hours later Luenda was lying on a hospital bed in St. Mungo's where a nurse was fussing over her recently unconscious body.

"Oh good, dear. You're awake. Would you like some water? Something to eat?" the nurse asked her.

Luenda didn't reply. In her minds eye she could still see the man pumping in and out of her mothers limp form.

"Err... did you hear me, dear? I asked if you wanted a drink?" the nurse inquired a little uncertainly.

Luenda glared at her.

"Okay, I take it you heard me then." She replied.

Luenda continued to glare.

The nurse disappeared for a moment, then reappeared with a healer in tow. The man smiled at Luenda, who simply ignored him.

"Hello, my colleague here tells me talking to you is giving her some difficulty." He told her pleasantly.

Luenda kept ignoring him.

The healer looked at her for a moment, then turned his attention to the nurse. "Give her some parchment and a quill. I think she might be in shock. Either that or she's mute."

Luenda offered him a glare too while the nurse went to retrieve the items and placed them on her bedside table. She was definitely NOT mute and he had absolutely no right to say something like that!


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N** A quick update! But please don't get used to it, right now I'm just having the one period a year when I have a lot of time on my hands. I will try to keep an update rate of at least once a week though. Either way, hope you enjoy! And don't forget to review. ;-)

Disclaimer: I don't own anything other than my OC.

 **A new family**

Three days after waking up in the hospital, Luenda was sitting in the DMLE office across from a woman with a monocle named Amelia Bones. Under normal circumstances this would not have fallen under the responsibilities of the head of the DMLE, but thanks to the Prophet having taken more than a little interest to the case, the girl still being silent and her being the only survivor and witness to it all Amelia had decided to handle this herself.

Amelia was trying her very best to find out who the girl opposite her was, but just as she had done in the hospital Luenda refused to speak at all. After half an hour of trying every imaginable way of communication to get a response out of her Amelia decided the best solution would be to order an identification test on her. So she quickly summoned administration worker to bring over what looked like a simple piece of parchment to Luenda, except that it was black instead of yellowish.

The procedure for the test was simple enough. Amelia explained to the girl that she would need a few drops of her blood. The parchment would then show her and her parents' names. She also told her the cut would be very small and that she could heal it for Luenda afterwards.

"So, if you could extend your hand please." Amelia ordered in her booming voice.

Luenda wasn't at all keen on the idea of someone performing a cutting hex on her, however light. Especially after seeing her mothers body that faithful night. So instead of offering her hand she kept it stubbornly under the table where both her hands resided in her lap and glared fiercely at the woman.

Amelia sighed: "You know I'll have to use force if you don't cooperate with me, right?"

Luenda merely continued to glare, unimpressed.

Amelia sighed again, this girl sure was making things a lot more difficult than they needed to be. She got up and attempted to take the girls hand only to grasp in thin air as she dodged, drawing her wand. Amelia realised it would probably make the situation worse, but as something needed to be done she drew her own and attempted to disarm the girl. She was astonished to see however the girl could pull off non-verbal spells when she not only protected herself from her disarming charm but quick as a bullet shot a spell of her own at her as well. A short duel ensued, but with Amelia not daring to fight a girl so young full-out and the girl never ceasing her onslaught of spells they weren't making any progress at all. In the end two additional Aurors were needed to hold her in place for her to be able to extract a few drops of her blood. As soon as she was free again Luenda raced out of the office towards the exit.

Amelia heaved a sigh. "Go after her."

One of them left immediately, the other hesitated. "Err... Madam Bones? Where do we look if she manages to reach the floo?"

"She doesn't speak, so she can't leave that way. And before you ask she's also too young to apparate. Now go." She snapped at him.

Sitting back down at her desk she looked at the parchment now revealing Luendas identity to her. Just above that were the names _Laayssa Sarkany_ and _Evan Rosier._

"A Death Eaters daughter, that would explain her knack for making things difficult at least." Amelia mused.

After being brought back into the office Luenda had backed away into a corner, wand drawn in case any of them came near her again. Seeing this Amelia realised the girl wouldn't give her any answers anytime soon. She sighed again, thinking she was doing that an awful lot today. Rightly assuming Luenda didn't know about her father Amelia told her his name and that he had died only a few days after she was born, as a result she was now an orphan, a guardian would be assigned to her and in the likely case they didn't find one she would have no alternative but to send her to an orphanage.

There had been a time when Luenda would have been thrilled to know her father had died, but now she found she didn't really care either way. She only hoped that it had been slow, cruel and painful like her mothers life had been because of him. As for where she went Luenda was fine with any place as long as they left her alone. Leaving her alone however seemed exactly the opposite of what Amelia Bones had in mind for her. A few minutes after being told about her father a girl somewhere around her age walked in greeting the woman with a squeal of delight and a hug. Amelia laughed and returned the hug.

"Susan, this is Luenda. I have to sort a few things out and can't leave her alone of course. Would you mind keeping her company for me?"

"Sure!" Susan replied happily and Amelia left the office.

The instant Amelia had left Susan started jabbering away about Hogwarts, friends, what she liked to do in her spare time and how she would like to enter the ministry after graduation like her aunt. Luenda was silent.

"You don't talk much, do you?" Susan asked after a while.

Luenda didn't respond. To which Susan seemed to decide she wanted to know more about her. This meant Luenda spend the next fifteen minutes ignoring questions about her parents, what other school she went to, what her favourite subject was, if she liked playing gobstones and of course why she was here.

By the end of it Luenda was even glad to see Amelia Bones re-enter the office to announce that by some miracle they had found a guardian for her. The mans name was Lucius Malfoy, both Susan and Amelia made a face at that, and he was currently speaking to the minister but would be more than happy to take her home afterwards if she was ready. From her tone Luenda got the idea the woman wasn't particularly happy about this Lucius Malfoy becoming her guardian.

Susan asked her if maybe she would like to spend a little more time together until Lucius Malfoy arrived, but Luenda merely glared at her having had quite enough of her never-ending talk and constant stream of questions. Despite it being uncomfortable she much preferred sitting alone in the corner of the office over spending time with the other girl.

As Lucius Malfoy entered the office sometime later Luenda had a brief chance to study his long, white-blond hair, pointy face, steely grey eyes and haughty manner before he noticed her sitting in her corner. When he spoke it was in a drawling voice:

"I take it this is the girl you were speaking of, Amelia?"

Amelia looked up from her paperwork. "Yes, and I should warn you, she doesn't take too kindly to being touched." She answered coldly.

"I'll bear that in mind." Lucius sneered at the woman and Luenda had to suppress a smirk.

"I will also need you to bring her in again as soon as she starts talking. I still have some questions for her. Until then I still want to see her at least once a week." Amelia continued.

"It doesn't look to me as though she's willing to give you any answers regardless of whether or not she speaks."

Amelia fixed him with a glare before shoving the required papers to him. Lucius signed them and they left after that.

Arriving at the manor Luendas eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Every square inch of it just screamed wealth and luxury.

"Lucius, who is this girl?" a blond woman asked coming into the hallway with the intention of greeting her husband.

"Narcissa," Lucius replied, placing a swift kiss on the woman's lips, "this is Luenda Sarkany, as of today we are her legal guardians."

"And why would we want to be her guardians, Lucius?" the woman asked with a dirty look at Luenda, who had ceased looking around in amazement in order to glare at the woman.

"Pip!" Lucius called and a second later a house-elf appeared, bowing before his master. "Show Miss Sarkany her bedroom and get her some decent clothes."

Luenda wanted to glare at him for that, but as the house-elf grabbed her hand and disapparated up the stairs with her before she had a chance to react that would have to wait until later. Downstairs Narcissa Malfoy was none too happy with her husband.

"Well?" Narcissa demanded from him.

"Being a her guardian will help me keep my position as a well respected member of the wizarding society, Narcissa. With the Dark Lord back it is important to keep that position secure to influence the minister in our favour. It was also found out that Rosier was her father. You know the Dark Lord asked to keep an eye on the children of dead Death Eaters and what better way than having her here? She'll be under our constant supervision and control."

Narcissa grudgingly relented on her husband, not at all pleased with having a girl who looked like a muggle and no sense of proper manners living under her roof.

Dinner was a difficult affair that evening. They had to explain to Draco he had a 'sister' from now on and it turned out he wasn't too happy about having to share his parents. The girl herself had simply ignored their summons to come downstairs so they ended up sending the house-elf up with a tray for her. Draco had positively thrown a tantrum at this, because to him this meant his parents were now more concerned about some random girl than they were about him. Lucius' announcement that he would have to be nice to her didn't help matters either.

Luenda for her part was perfectly fine sitting in her room. She only wished she had something to do. Perhaps she ought to wait until everyone was asleep so she could explore the rest of the manor in peace. At first glance the place certainly seemed big enough to hold an entire library.

Waiting until the family was asleep however proved unnecessary as the woman from earlier came up to her room to introduce herself and offered to give her the grant tour of the place, apparently trying to be nice. Luenda figured that if she was going to live here from now on she might as well follow. She was delighted to find the place did indeed have a library where she could read at leisure, then there was Lucius' study where she could only enter with his express permission, a room where she was told never to enter at all, every other room you expect to find in a house and a dozen or so bedrooms, none of which were being used.

Narcissa had then insisted she come downstairs for a moment so she could be introduced to her new 'brother' as well. Draco didn't take her silence too well, nor did he like the fact she wouldn't shake his hand. He had stormed out of the living room and up the stairs. Narcissa didn't appreciate her behaviour either, commenting on how rude she was and that she would need a tutor on manners.

Lucius on the other hand took a different tactic, instead of calling her out on lack of manners or pulling attention to her silence he told her they would be visiting Gringotts together tomorrow and by the time they got back her room would be refurnished to make her feel more at home. If she just left instructions behind her every wish could be seen to.

The next day the goblins required another blood sample of her in order to complete an inheritance test. Luenda didn't like it, but having learned from her previous experience she performed a silent cutting hex on herself this time rather then refusing. It turned out that she was the last of her fathers bloodline thus inheriting everything. She had also inherited everything from her grandparents on her mothers side of the family as only her mother had been disowned and not her.

Suddenly Luenda found herself being the owner of several estates and rich beyond her imagination. The knowledge made her feel thoroughly depressed though. If she had only known sooner they would never have been short on money, her mother would never have had to prostitute herself and she would still be alive today. Tears stung her eyes at the thought of her mothers mangled body. It was probably burned now.

Lucius didn't seem to notice her worsened mood however, because he was quite cheerful when he suggested they go to Madam Malkins' for some new clothes that according to him were more befitting to her status as a pureblood. For the life of her Luenda couldn't see what was wrong with the faded jeans and floral printed shirt she was wearing now, but she allowed herself to be dragged off. After that Lucius decided she also needed her own broom followed by giving her free range to pick out however many books she liked from Flourish and Blott's and a visit to the magical pet store because he thought maybe having a pet would help her feel more at home at the manor.

Luenda merely thought the man extremely materialistic, but selected a wide variety of interesting looking books nonetheless, as well as a decent broom for stunt flying, she didn't care much for playing quidditch, and a pitch black owl.

The afternoon however held a much less pleasant surprise. Narcissa had already made good on her threat of finding her a tutor on manners and lessons were starting immediately. Meaning that the rest of her holidays were filled with learning what cutlery to use and when, how to behave in general and how to speak to people. The last one being a bit of a problem because she still refused to speak a word.

On top of that Narcissa had had the idea to propose a deal: they would leave her alone in her room on the condition she would attend meals with the rest of the family. So starting that evening Luenda had taken her meals in the dining room. And she also still had her weekly visits to Amelia Bones, whom she started to hate with a passion. She was required to join the family on a second visit to Diagon Alley to get her and Draco's school stuff. Then there were the Death Eaters popping in and out of the place, all of whom were very interested in who she was meaning she was hardly ever left in peace.

All in all it meant Luenda found herself looking forward to going to Hogwarts, even if the place would be far to crowded for her liking and the general awkwardness of being the only new person in a group of teenagers. After all she'd heard about the place she was at least certain she would be able to find a spot where she would truly be alone there.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N** This chapter contains an actual part of the book, which I will write in italics so it will be clearly visible and those who know it pretty much by heart by now can skip it if they like. Now that we've finally gotten through the boring part of placing the story in space and time properly I also hope you will find it more interesting and enjoyable.

I don't own anything apart from my OC.

Enjoy! And leave a review if you find the time.

 **Hogwarts**

Although the Malfoys had told her to stay close to Draco Luenda made it a point to get as far away from him as possible as soon as they had boarded the Hogwarts Express. It really didn't have anything to do with him, it was just that she was yearning to be alone for a while. When she finally found an empty compartment she hoisted her trunk onto the luggage rack, settled herself with a book and started to read.

Her moment of peace was short-lived though, as a couple of other girls entered the compartment chatting away about their holidays. To her horror Luenda noticed one of the girls was Susan, the girl who had kept her company during her first visit at the DMLE. Even worse than that was that Susan had recognised Luenda as well and greeted her as though they were old friends. Luenda glared at her, but it went unnoticed as Susan proceeded to introduce the other girls to her.

Luenda ignored them and simply continued to read, which was made difficult as the girls constantly attempted to get her to join in their conversation. And when this failed started to ask her if she was the same Luenda that had been in the Prophet, if the stories were true and why she didn't talk. Luenda was horrified. Not reading the paper she hadn't known the case had been publicised, much less how much it had said about herself.

From what the girls said the information on her ranged from trivial matters such as her name and age to who her parents were, what they did and they had even managed to get their hands on the basic information of her inheritance. Another subject of great interest had been what they supposed had been the cause of her silence. Depending on which reporter had been writing an article the explanations went from being mute to being in shock to having murdered her own mother out of disgust about what she did for a living.

Little though Luenda wanted to think about it she had to admit that last explanation wasn't too far from the truth. She had indeed murdered someone, albeit accidentally: the man who had murdered her mother. It wasn't the reason for her silence exactly, but that didn't make it less true. The real reason Luenda was silent was because she was quite sure no-one would believe it was accidental magic anyway and the whole world would hate her for what she did, so she preferred not to risk telling anyone. She was also afraid she might throw up if she spoke duo to the fact that she was still seeing her mothers mangled body in her mind and the foul grin on her murderer's face.

When in Luenda got of the train she saw Draco again while following the other students towards carriages pulled by great, black, skeletal looking horses. He was now accompanied by two very large, muscular boys that didn't look too bright and a girl she thought looked a bit like one of the Death Eaters that had so often visited the manor over the summer.

Her arrival at Hogwarts meant Luenda had to deal with another uncomfortable situation: The Sorting Ceremony. A stern looking woman had pulled her apart to inform her that since she was new here she would be sorted with the first years. Therefore she was now standing in a room next to the Great Hall listening to an explanation about school houses, a point system to encourage good behaviour and a house cup that would be awarded to the house that had the most points at the end of term. Luenda could see how this would influence the younger students, although why older students would care about it was a mystery to her.

After finally being led into the Great Hall she waited with the younger students, wishing she could disappear. Nearly everyone stared at her because she was towering over everyone else, owing to the fact that she was three years older than them.

One by one the stern woman called them forward in alphabetical order making Luenda curse inwardly at her last name. She tried very hard to ignore the continues staring and kept her eyes trained on the Sorting Hat instead. As she did so she noticed that some students were sorted more quickly than others. She wondered why.

When her name was finally called she stepped forward, looking every bit as nervous as any of the first years. The woman, who she had learned was called Professor Mcgonagall, placed the hat on top of her head where it slipped past her eyes. Annoyed she waited.

"Ah, this is unusual." A small voice told her suddenly, sounding rather amused.

"Get out of my head!" Luenda thought, wanting to rip the hat off immediately.

The voice chuckled and then wend on: "Clever I see and you will stop at nothing to achieve your goals. And Merlin knows you could do with a friend... so perhaps you should be in Huffle-"

"No!" she thought, effectively interrupting the small voice.

"No? I could put you into Ravenclaw, you're certainly clever enough." The hat mused.

"No." Luenda thought again.

"No, I agree it wouldn't be a good fit for you. You don't value knowledge for the sake of it do you? No I think it would be best if I put you into SLYTHERIN!" the hat shouted to the hall at large.

Glad she could finally get out of the spotlight she nearly ran to the Slytherin table where she was congratulated by her house mates. Only a few minutes later the last few students were sorted into their respective houses Dumbledore got up.

" _To our newcomers," said Dumbledore in a ringing voice, his arms stretched wide and a beaming smile on his lips. "Welcome. To our old hands, welcome back. There is a time for speech making, but this is not it. Tuck. In."_

At his last words food appeared quite suddenly onto the tables, making them groan under its weight. Luenda looked at all the different options before settling on a simple pasta dish with smoked salmon and spinach. When everyone had had their fill the food disappeared again to be replaced with a wide variate of delicious looking deserts. When the food had disappeared again and the golden plates were left sparkly clean once more Dumbledore got to his feet again.

" _Well, now that we're all digesting another magnificent feast, I beg a few moments of your attention for the usual start of term notices." Said Dumbledore. "First years ought to know that the forest in the grounds is out of bounds to students and a few of our older students ought to know by know too. Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me, for what he tells me is the 462_ _nd_ _time, to remind you all that magic is not permitted in corridors in between classes. Nor are a number of other things, all of which can be found on the extensive list now fastened to Mr. Filch's office door. We have had two changes in staffing this year. We are very pleased to welcome back Professor Grubly Plank, who will be taking care of magical creatures lessons. We are also delighted to introduce Professor Umbridge, our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher."_

After this Luenda tuned out. She didn't care one bit about quidditch tryouts, as she would only watch the game because of Draco anyway, nor did she care about Umbridge's speech. She slipped out her book and started to read until she heard a scraping of chairs, indicating the rest of the school was taking their leave and she should probably do the same.

Luenda's first week of classes did not go smoothly. She kept getting lost in the castle meaning that she arrived only just on time and teachers kept asking her questions in an attempt to find out whether or not she was behind on things. Professor Umbridge even went as far to keep her back at the end of the lesson to tell her that if she didn't start answering her questions soon she would have no alternative than to put her in detention. Professor Snape meanwhile was constantly commenting on how much of a natural she was at potions, which was probably true as she easily outshone everyone in her class, and Professors Flitwick and Mcgonagall had both complimented her on her ability to do non-verbal spellwork. Luenda did not enjoy all the attention at all.

Her dorm-mates weren't making it any easier either. They had quickly found her an easy target for their teasing as they were sure she wouldn't tell on them. So the evenings weren't much of a relief either and by the end of the week Luenda wanted nothing more than to be back at the manor, where she could at least lock herself up in her bedroom and be left alone in the evenings.

Luenda wanted to dedicate the weekend to exploring the castle, so as not to get lost anymore and also so she could spend some time away from everyone. A plan that was put on hold when a ravenclaw girl from her Herbology class approached her.

"You feel lonely don't you?" the girl asked in a dreamy voice.

As usual Luenda didn't answer, but unlike most people the girl didn't seem offended at that. In fact she continued as though it was perfectly normal not to answer a direct question.

"I'm Luna," she said; "and you must be Luenda."

Luenda shot glance at her, wondering what was coming next.

"I often feel very lonely too you know, people avoid me. They think I'm a bit odd you see. I think we might have that in common." Luna said.

Luenda couldn't explain it, but for some reason she was enjoying Luna's company. Perhaps it was the way she seemed to simply accept her silence rather than trying to break it. Or maybe because she appeared to understand something about her other people didn't.

They ended up spending the rest of the morning together, Luna guiding her around the school and telling her stories about her mother, who had apparently died when she was 9. It was oddly comforting to Luenda to hear these stories. She was sorry for Luna's loss of course, but it made her feel less lonely to know Luna too had lost a parent.

As term wore on Luenda started to spend more and more time with Luna. They sat together in shared classes and joined each other in the library where they worked in comfortable silence. During the weekends they would either go outside or find a peaceful spot within the castle where Luna would tell her all about Crumple horned snorkacks, Blibbering humdingers, Nargles, Wrackspurts and a load of other creatures Luenda had never heard of. She wasn't entirely sure any of them really existed, but she enjoyed it nonetheless.

Luna seemed to be enjoying herself too. She finally had a friend. A friend who didn't judge her on her firm belief in creatures that weren't yet proven to exist. A friend who would always listen, even if she wouldn't answer her directly. Most people thought Luenda didn't talk whether because she couldn't or didn't want to, but Luna had noticed her eyes shifted ever so slightly in response to her questions or whenever she was thinking about something. It had been difficult at first to interpret these little shifts correctly, but Luna had thought it well worth the effort. Because for the first time since coming to Hogwarts Luna truly wasn't alone.

Luenda entered the DADA classroom that Tuesday, already dreading the detention Professor Umbridge was sure to give her.

"Good morning class." Umbridge greeted them in her usual sickly sweet voice.

"Good morning Professor Umbridge" the class greeted back, Luenda kept quiet as always, flipped open her book and started to read.

Unlike the other teachers who had given up on trying to get a response out of her after the first week Umbridge came over to her desk like she did every lesson to comment on the fact. When she received no reply, much less an apology, she started threatening Luenda with the usual detention and point deductions. As Luenda couldn't care less about the whole point system this never left much of an impression on her. She was however sick of spending two evenings a week in detention being interrogated by an increasingly annoyed and obviously offended Umbridge. So the instant Umbridge spoke to her today she glared at her, slammed her book shut again, picked up her bag and left the room without a backwards glance.

She spend the remainder of the lesson in the library instead, where she started on some homework as she really couldn't see the point of reading _Basics for Beginners._ The book was incredibly dull and didn't seem to contain a single spell or instructions on how to use them. All it did was hammer on about how and why jinxes were dangerous and should therefore never be used.

Luenda started first on her potions essay for later that week, because for all Snape's talk about how much of a natural she was she found the theory behind it all rather complicated. Not being any good at potions her mother had never bothered to teach her the theory, but simply let her get on with the subject as she pleased. Luenda couldn't really see the point of it either, when she was brewing a potion she never looked at the instructions anyway. It was as though the potion was telling her what to do or add and when to do it. Well, not literally telling her of course, but she could somehow sense it's magic and what it needed. It was the main reason why she had always enjoyed potion making so much.

The rest of the week crept by very slowly. Luenda sat her classes, walked out once more on Friday during Defence so she could avoid getting detention and do her homework instead and sat together with Luna in the library in the evenings noticing how much trouble the other girl was having with her own potions essay.

Luenda went into Hogsmeade alone that Saturday. She had hoped Luna would have gone with her, but apparently some Gryffindor girl had asked her to meet in the Hog's Head. Luna had asked her if she wanted to come with her, but as she had quickly realised in the two months she'd been at Hogwarts Slytherins and Gryffindors simply didn't mix so she refused and agreed to meet up later in the other pub, the Three Broomsticks.

She walked into the pet store to buy some owl treats for Tenebris, the black owl she got from Lucius over the summer. She then went into Honeydukes and the local bookshop. Checking her watch Luenda noticed it was nearly time to meet up with Luna in the Three Broomsticks and made her way over there. Luna joined her shortly after with some butterbeers and told her all about the meeting she just went to.

"You should really come next time, it was very interesting. Harry says he's going to teach us all Defence Against the Dark Arts because Umbridge isn't teaching us anything." Luna said in her dreamy voice. Luenda just eyed her sceptically.

After a perfectly detailed account of what had been said and by who Luna took out the Quibbler, a magazine of which Luna's father was the editor of, turned it upside down and started to read. Luenda gazed at her friend for a moment, wondering why Luna always read it upside down. Then she took out one of her new books on healing magic and started to read for herself, holding the book the right way up.

Luna would sometimes pull her attention to something in the magazine, but they mostly sat there reading together in silence, occasionally sipping their butterbeers or picking up one of the sweets Luenda had now put on the table between them. All too soon it was time to head back to the castle.


	4. Chapter 4

**A positive upturn**

Over the following weeks Luenda started to see less and less of Luna. Though they still sat together in their shared classes and still spend most part of the weekends with each other, they hardly ever met up in the library to study or read together anymore since Luna attempted that meeting in the Hog's Head. She had also stopped telling Luenda about what they were up to. This didn't stop her from trying to get Luenda to come along though, but Luenda still wasn't interested.

She supposed she could do with a few decent defence lessons, as she didn't know many offensive spells, nor defensive ones for that matter. She had mostly hid behind shooting a load of different coloured lights that really didn't do anything except look flashy back at the ministry during the summer. As for defending herself the only spell she knew was the protego charm, which was the only defensive spell her mother had ever taught her. To her credit her mother had been so obsessed about Luenda learning the spell she had gone through the effort of teaching her how to do it wordless, wandless, with different amounts of power behind it to suit the spell being shot at her, how to pull it up so it covered only a small area of the body and how to anchor it to object around her as well as to various body parts. Luenda thought that last bit would come in very handy to cover wounds and already weakened parts of herself if she ever came to be in a duel. She doubted that would ever be the case though, she had always hated fighting. But it was good to know she had some kind of defence should the need arise nonetheless.

Luna also started doing her homework during the weekends rather than in the evenings when they used to sit in the library together. This meant Luna also talked less about creatures that possibly only existed in her mind, which Luenda found to be a shame. She liked hearing about them, even if she couldn't be sure if they existed. She liked Luna's open minded view of the world and her stubborn belief in things until they were proven not to exist rather than the other way around.

As Luenda watched her friend struggling her way through another potions essay that Saturday morning after breakfast in a secluded room they had found somewhere in the dungeons, she debated with herself. She could go back to her reading and pretend not to have noticed the trouble Luna was having with her potions, but on the other hand Luna had been there for her when she was lonely, friendless and feeling as though she would drown in her grief and over time as she had taken time to read up on the basics she had come to understand the theory quite well. So well in fact that she had received top marks on her last two essays.

"Do you need help with that?" she asked in a voice hoarse from lack of use.

Luna looked up at her, puzzled. Then she nodded. "Yes, I'm really bad at potions and Professor Snape is getting really horrible about it." She replied with an anguished look in her eyes and Luenda noticed the usual dreamy tone had left her voice.

Luenda just nodded back, she quite liked him herself as long as he didn't pull attention to her abilities, but she had noticed how he sometimes got with the Gryffindors and so had an idea about what she meant. After a moment she said: "Put it away for now. We'll finish it tomorrow."

The weeks after that Luna reverted more to her old self during the weekends. She would talk endlessly again the Saturdays they spend together while Luenda listened to her in silence, while Luenda helped her with potions on Sundays and read while Luna finished the rest of her homework. Luenda also consented to join Luna at one of those meetings, where she found out she was the only Slytherin ever to have attended one of them and no-one was very happy to have her there apart from Luna. She had not enjoyed it at all and thus refused to go again after that first time.

On the last day before the Christmas holidays Luna came rushing out to her during lunch to tell her she had gotten a 7/10 on her last potions essay and that she had managed to correctly brew a shrinking solution. It was clear to Luenda the other girl couldn't be happier about it all and she felt a surge of pride at her friends progress.

"You know, you should help others as well. It's not fair to keep your gift to yourself" Luna said.

Luenda looked panic stricken at these words. Knowing Luna, she would most probably already have found every single student in the school who had difficulties with the subject and promised them all that Luenda would help them.

"You don't need to be afraid, it'll be good for you too. People asking for your help won't tease you, you might even make some friends."

"I don't want more friends, Luna. I'm fine with having only you." Luenda whispered careful not to be seen or heard. After all she hadn't yet spoken in front of anyone else and she wasn't ready to do so.

"Well that's too bad," answered Luna in the most matter-of-fact tone Luenda had ever heard her use. "because I've already invited Neville along."

With that she turned and left for the Ravenclaw table, leaving Luenda standing there feeling a combination of mingled dread, anxiety, nerves and slightly angry at her.

The start of the Christmas holidays held a surprise for Luenda. When she arrived at the manor with Draco they took her up to her room where to her amazement a potions lab had been attached to it complete with store cupboard, bookshelves, empty vials, jars, cauldrons and everything else needed for potion making. Her mouth fell open as realisation hit her: she now had her very own potions lab. It was just too perfect to be true.

"We didn't really know what to get you for Christmas," Narcissa said, rather hesitantly. "and Severus told us you really seemed to enjoy his lessons so we thought we'd give you this as an early present. We can still go shopping together for something else if you don't like it."

Luenda turned from staring at the lab to Narcissa, mouth still agape. She could not for the life of her see why the woman appeared to be warming up to her, even less why she would seem a little nervous. Slowly Luenda nodded.

"It's perfect." She whispered without thinking and for the first time she cracked a smile at her foster parents. These people might be horribly materialistic and would never be able to give her the love her own mother had always given her, but for the first time she saw that, for their own inscrutable reasons, they were trying their very best to help her.

Luenda didn't speak again that day, preferring to listen to what everyone else was saying during dinner. Draco told his parents all about Harry Potter getting quite a few detentions, Professor Umbridge favouring the Slytherins, Hermione Granger still being an annoying know-it-all, teachers favouring her for some reason and it wasn't fair, the article appearing in _the Quibbler,_ the insane amount of homework the fifth years were getting and every other detail about his life at Hogwarts. Lucius informed his son he had hired a tutor for him to prepare him properly for his O.W.L.s and that he was to study with him every morning from 8 to 12am, that he was to take up a career in banking and that Draco should be ashamed that he was still being bested by a filthy mudblood. Narcissa, like Luenda, kept quiet while her husband and son talked, although she kept shooting worried glances at both teenagers at the table.

After dinner Luenda went upstairs to properly arrange her new potions lab, she moved all her books on potion making from the shelves over her desk to the ones in the lab, refilled her ingredients in the small kit she used at school, made an inventory of everything in the store cupboard and started on a bruise removing balm to break in her new lab and tools. The last thing she did before going to bed was feed a few owl treats to Tenebris, feeling that with time she might just be able to find happiness and pick up her life again.

Luenda awoke the next morning, feeling better rested than she had done in months. It was the first time she 4 not been woken by nightmares since the summer. Crawling out of bed she smiled at the black owl sleeping peacefully in his cage and took a quick shower before selecting a pale yellow dress for the day. She would have preferred to wear a simple pair of her favourite faded jeans and a sweater, but as those were not deemed suitable clothing by the Malfoys her closet was comprised only of dresses, all with matching cloaks in case she wanted to go outside. Luenda also noticed there were several more dresses there then when she left for Hogwarts a few months ago, which was just as well because it was now freezing outside and these new dresses seemed to be a lot warmer than those she had worn over the summer.

When she was dressed she went into the next room to check on her bruise removing balm. It wasn't a very difficult potion to make, but it had to mature for about 24 hours to thicken after all the ingredients had been added. She was pleased to see the balm maturing well and went down for breakfast, where Narcissa sat waiting for her at the table.

"Good morning," she said, motioning for her to sit down; "Did you have any plans for the day yet?"

Luenda shook her head.

"Good, then you can join me. I have to stop by Knockturn alley to pick up a few things and we can finish Christmas shopping while we're there. Lucius will be..." she paused, "at work for the rest of the day and Draco has to study so it'll be just us girls."

A smile graced Narcissa's face for a moment, Luenda thought she seemed genuinely excited with the prospect of having some girl time. She nodded and they finished their breakfast in silence.

Knockturn alley certainly was the most interesting place she ever visited. Gloomy as the street was the shops held the most peculiar objects. A book store that sold books on magic so dark it went beyond anything she could ever have imagined, Luenda bought two books on lethal potions there, gaining herself an appraising look from Narcissa. Not that she was interested in poisoning anyone, but because none of the potions in them had a known antidote yet and it would be a challenge to invent some. Then there were shops that specialised in cursed items, both Luenda and Narcissa were very careful not to touch anything in there, there was the apothecary where you could find all kind of potion ingredients that you would definitely not be able to find in Diagon Alley and where they advertised in their abilities to make any type of poison and other dangerous potions you may like, for the right price of course. The robe shop held a variate of clothing that was said to have its own magical properties and much, much more.

The entire alley seemed to be devoted to the Dark Arts and what was more was that every shop seemed to have a back room where transactions that belonged to the black market were handled and even darker items could be bought. But if the shops were peculiar it was nothing compared to the people bustling around. Nearly all of them kept their face hidden and when Luenda did catch a glimpse of someone's face it usually looked distinctly the worse for wear with gruesome disfigurements due to experiments gone wrong or else dabbling in magic so dark it was beyond their abilities. They also seemed to be afraid of being watched or followed by their fellow shoppers, because they kept looking around anxiously. The few who, like themselves, didn't try to hide their identities all seemed to belong to rich, pureblood families. They held their heads up high and looked down their noses at the hooded figures around them. Luenda recognised nearly all of these people from their visits to the manor over the summer.

After their trip into Knockturn Alley, they sat down for lunch in a small cafe in the much lighter, and in Luenda's opinion much less interesting, street of Diagon Alley. The street looked like a picture on a postcard with a thick layer of snow covering the ground and buildings around them, families and friends huddled together against the cold happily doing their shopping and the shop owners all having put up the most beautiful decorations.

"Narcissa, do you think it might be possible for you or Lucius to accompany me on a visit to some of my estates some time during the holidays?" Luenda asked timidly, "It's just that the goblins told me over the summer I inherited some and I don't really know what to do with them."

"Of course we can go and have a look at them." Narcissa answered smiling at her; "It would be ideal to go with Lucius of course, he knows much more about that sort of thing than I do. But he won't be available anytime soon I'm afraid, so maybe you and I could go this Thursday?"

Luenda nodded. They finished their lunch together and set of to visit the rest of Diagon Alley for their Christmas shopping. Narcissa helped her pick out a nice new travelling cloak with attached heating charms and several inside pockets with room to store pretty much anything one might need on a long journey for Lucius at _Madam Malkin's robes for all occasions._ They also went into _Quality quidditch supplies,_ where she bought a scale model of the longest quidditch match played in history that actually played out the entire match second by second for Draco. After looking at Narcissa for a long time thinking on what she could possibly buy the woman, she could hardly ask her what she would like as it would ruin the surprise, she gave her the slip while she was distracted pondering over what she would get for her son, ran into the nearest jewellery store and bought her the set of sapphire earrings and necklace she'd eyed briefly when they passed and quickly made her way back hoping Narcissa hadn't noticed her absence.

Unfortunately Narcissa had noticed her absence and was none too pleased with it. She became cold and distant with her for the remainder of the trip and started ranting about how irresponsible she'd been the instant they arrived back at the manor. Luenda said nothing and left for her bedroom again after dinner, during which she noticed Narcissa was once again shooting worried glances at both herself and Draco.

Because Luenda didn't know where any of her estates were they first visited Gringotts on Thursday, where a goblin provided them with a map on which all of their locations were marked. It turned out she owned 17 estates in total strewn around the country. The one that got Luenda's interest first was the one located at the sea.

When they arrived they saw that it was small compared to the manor, being comprised of only 7 rooms. There were two bedrooms, a study and a small library upstairs and the living room, dining room and kitchen were downstairs. There was also a small garden attached, which gave way to the beach on the other end. The place was perfect to Luenda, peaceful and quiet. She was sure this was where she wanted to live once she came of age, she even started making mental notes on incorporating the study into the library so she could turn that room into a potions lab, what plants she could and wanted in the garden and how to furnish the place. Narcissa on the other hand was not impressed with the small house.

"Oh it's way too small to live in, unless of course you're so poor you can't afford something bigger. The Weasleys would probably be over the moon with it, but I can't imagine anyone else who would want to live here. Maybe it could be useful as a vacation home..." she pondered. "Yes I think that would be the best use for it. If you empty it of everything useful and refurnish the place you could rent it out during the summer. You could make a lot of money that way."

"I like it." Luenda said.

"Don't be ridiculous Luenda, you're a pureblood. You can't live in a place like this."

Luenda didn't reply, figuring that for the next few years she would be living at the manor anyway so she might as well turn it into a vacation home and rent it out for the time being.

The other estates were a lot bigger and therefore more suitable to live in according to Narcissa. But Luenda didn't like them much, they didn't give her that same feeling of coming home that the one at the sea had done. Their locations were much too noisy for her liking and they made her feel lonely just by looking at them. She was not at all sorry that even though Narcissa found them a lot more suitable she still didn't think them good enough for anything other than renting them out. According to her she should live at one of her family homes: Rosier Manor or Sarkany Manor. They had saved these for last and it was there, at Rosier Manor that Luenda received a shock when a house-elf came bounding up to them, bowed deeply and said:

"Good day Mistress, how may Tiri help you today Mistress?"

Luenda looked at Narcissa for a moment before asking: "Ehm... Who are you exactly ehm... Tiri?"

"Tiri is your house-elf Mistress, we is been waiting a very long time to see you Mistress." The elf answered happily.

"We?" Luenda said confused.

"Yes Mistress, we your house-elves"

"But it haven't got any house-elves." She said even more confused by the elf's reply.

"Most family homes come with house-elves." Narcissa interjected gently.

"Oh. But how do you know who I am?"

"Because of the bond that keeps us elves with your family Mistress. We feels it Mistress." Tiri answered as though this was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Okay, but when you say we... who else did you mean? Luenda inquired, not sure if she elf's answer confused her more or less.

"Tiri and Turu, Tiri's brother Mistress."

"Can you get him for me please?" Luenda asked and the elf looked momentarily shocked at being addressed so politely, then popped away.

A second later she popped back into the room accompanied by another elf whom Luenda supposed had to be Turu. Both elves bowed deeply before them and looked expectantly up at Luenda.

"Ehm... Could you both accompany us to Sarkany Manor please?" she asked them nervously.

The elves took their hands and they reappeared in front of her second manor, which was located in the middle of a forest. Something told Luenda that the house at the sea was the only other estate that had belonged to the Sarkanys. The place certainly had the same welcoming look about it and the forest around provided for another peaceful and quiet environment. If she had to live at a manor she would definitely pick this one.

Inside they were greeted by another house-elf by the name of Rukk. Unlike Tiri and Turu, whom appeared to be fairly young, Rukk was very old and seemed more in need of retirement than anything else. Nevertheless he bowed as deeply as he could and offered to bring them tea. By the look of the place it had been several years since it had been inhabited and Luenda sincerely doubted anything in here would still be fit for consumption so she refused. When she asked Rukk about it he told her her grandparents had died about five years ago, but that they had moved to the house at the sea after disowning her mother. He had been ordered to come back here and wait for an heir after their deaths.

They sat down around the table after a tour around the place. Luenda had been very pleased to find out her grandfather had been a potions master, so the place held it's own potions lab as well as a large herb garden. When she told her three house-elves to sit down as well they practically burst out in tears while Narcissa shot her a disgusted look, so it took a couple of minutes before they were all settles and she could speak.

"Well, I was wondering if you could help me fix this place up a little, bring all my possessions from the other estates here and then fix those up as well." She began.

The elves all nodded fervently.

"So you choose this manor then?" Narcissa asked.

Luenda nodded and they started making plans on how to fix up the place and refurnishments. When everything was set Luenda assured the elves it wasn't a pressing matter and that she thought it much more important that they took good care of themselves. She also ordered them to pick out an actual bedroom as opposed to sleeping in a den. When Narcissa and Luenda finally left again after a very long day it was already dark out and not until this very moment had she noticed how very hungry she was. Neither of them had eaten anything since breakfast so Luenda was very glad Narcissa offered to go out to eat first before going home.

Christmas day was a quiet affair where everyone kept mainly to themselves. They had opted for a Christmas breakfast rather than dinner, because Lucius had to join the Dark Lord in planning for a mission again. He thanked Luenda for his new travelling cloak and told her it would come in very handy on the mission. Draco was over the moon with his presents and didn't show himself again after breakfast, because he was too immersed in them. Luenda had no doubt he'd be bored with them soon enough though, being brought up getting everything he wanted made it a lot harder for him to truly appreciate what he got. Narcissa seemed to be getting more worried by the day and hardly reacted to anything. Luenda thought she seemed a little paler than usual too and resolved to brew her a pepper-up potion later, thinking she might be falling ill or something.

Draco had gotten her a silver bracelet with dragon shaped charms on it in different gems. It was absolutely gorgeous. He told her he didn't really know what to get her since they hardly knew each other and her last name meant dragon in Hungarian. Luenda was momentarily perplexed about how much thought her 'brother' had actually put into his gift, she never knew her last name had a meaning. To her it was just a name like any other. She was even more perplexed when Lucius offered her a small vial full of a thick silver liquid, she thought she'd already gotten her present from them when they showed her the potions lab the night she came back for the holidays.

"It's unicorn blood." He said.

Luenda nodded, she'd recognised it immediately.

"The Dark Lord wants you to have it. He wants you to brew him a potion called resuscitatio mentis."

She felt her blood run cold at the mention of the Dark Lord. Why would he want anything from her at all? No-one in her family had ever been involved with him as far as she knew. Lucius elaborated at the frightened and confused expression on her face:

"The Dark Lord holds close tabs on the children of his followers, Luenda. And as your father was a Death Eater he was very interested to know how you remained elusive for so many years. You see, he didn't become aware of your existence until this summer when I told him about it."

"Why?" Luenda asked, getting positively angry now.

"He tasked all of us with tracking down any children of those in his service who died shortly after his... ehm... temporary absence. And then you turned up at the ministry, a child who had remained unknown for fourteen years to one of his more loyal followers. It was quite a shock to us all, not least to the Dark Lord himself, I must say. And then you started going to Hogwarts where you showed an exceptional aptitude for potion making, when your father wouldn't have been able to whip up a simple cure for boils to save his life. He became most interested in you and asked me to do a little more background research on you." He paused for a moment. "Turns out your grandfather was a renowned potion master and your grandmother had been a sort of healer for magical creatures. Your father he knew had been a reasonably skilled duellist. He wasn't very good at powerful spells, but his speed made more than up for that. That is until he was faced with a couple of Aurors on his own of course, which is how he died. Your mother on the other hand was well known at school for her power, but became terrified of using it after putting several of her classmates into the hospital wing during what was supposed to be a friendly duel. From what I gathered at the ministry and read in the Prophet you seem to have inherited both your father's speed and your mother's power."

Luenda was left speechless at how much Lucius knew about her family. After a long silence she asked: "And why doesn't he ask one of his Death Eaters to make this potion for him?"

"He has, however he also wants to see for himself what you can do. As I said he is most interested in you. You are of course much too young to join in his service as of now, but he would like you to join his ranks in a few years."

"I don't want to be a Death Eater." Luenda answered simply, handing back the vial of unicorn blood.

"You will do what is expected of you young lady. You will brew the resuscitatio mentis for him now and when the time comes you will join him. Do I make myself clear?" Lucius said in a deadly calm voice.

Luenda glared at him for a moment, picked up the vial again and stormed upstairs to her bedroom, where she would spend the major part of her days for the remainder of the holidays. The only times she left it were when she had to go downstairs for mealtimes or when she called upon one of her elves to visit Sarkany Manor, something she did every other day now. She did however start on the potion, which she consisted of four separate potions that had to be combined at the exact right times and in perfectly balanced quantities in order for it to work properly. The Dark Lord could hardly have set her a more difficult task and although she would never admit it to anyone and was in anyone constant towering mood over it she secretly relished in the challenge it provided. She also hadn't spoken a word anymore since her argument with Lucius and was looking forward to going back to Hogwarts where she would have Luna again, or so she hoped. Open-minded as her friend was, Luenda doubted she would be very tolerable towards Death Eaters. The very idea of losing her first and only friend made her feel more lonely than ever, so whenever she wasn't already busy brewing the potion for the Dark Lord or making sure Rukk, Tiri and Turu were doing alright she buried herself in her books in hopes of driving the depressing thoughts from her mind.


	5. Chapter 5

I don't own anything other than my OC.

 **Teaching and learning**

"What's that around your wrist Sarkany? Found a boy who doesn't mind your freakiness?" taunted one of the girls in her dormitory the moment she caught sight of Luenda.

Luenda held up her wrist where the thin bracelet now resided and smirked at her classmates, neither confirming nor denying their words. The other girls all looked shocked at her reaction, never before had they gotten anything other than a glare out of her and that was if they were lucky. Luenda knew she had just frightened them into thinking she might soon start talking, meaning that she could tell on them and their constant taunting and bullying would get consequences. They didn't know of course that she had been talking to Luna for nearly two months now or that she had spoken to the Malfoys for almost the entire Christmas holidays.

After this little incident on the first evening her first week back at Hogwarts was relatively quiet. She still wasn't bothering to remain in class during Defence Against the Dark Arts, choosing to prepare some remedial potions for Luna on Sunday instead, but other than that nothing interesting happened until wasn't until she saw them walking into the dungeon room Luenda remembered Luna would be bringing someone named Neville along.

"Why didn't you tell me she was a Slytherin?" the boy whispered to Luna.

"Well it doesn't matter, does it? She's great at potions and wants to help us." Luna answered serenely.

"Well..." Neville began, but Luenda cut across him:

"It's rude to talk about someone as if they're not there you know." She said coldly. Neville looked petrified and without another word Luenda pointed to a seat for him to take.

Luenda progressed to instruct Luna on how to start up the potion she wanted her to make, purposefully ignoring Neville who started to look more agitated by the minute. When at last she turned her attention back to the boy he was positively sweating with anxiety.

"What year are you?" she asked him.

"Fifth." Neville answered in a trembling voice.

Luenda observed him for a moment, wrote the recipe for Luna's potion down and said: "Attempt to make it, I will be observing only today."

After that all of them were quiet for the next two hours. The only sounds filling the dungeon room were those of Neville and Luna brewing their potions and the occasional scratching of Luenda's quill as she made notes on their progress. When they were done she scooped up a little of Luna's potion so she could examine it later on, but it looked to be fairly well done. She didn't need to look at Neville's potion to know it was a complete fiasco however, so she merely vanished it without sparing it a glance.

"Your main problem is nerves." She informed him; "It makes your work sloppy and you miss steps."

Neville nodded sadly. He knew that, but he could hardly explain to a Slytherin he was afraid of Snape and his grandmother and if he was being honest with himself, he thought the girl too was rather frightening.

"Second you need to be more careful in handling your ingredients. How do you usually score on your essays?"

Startled by this sudden change of subject Neville didn't respond immediately, eventually he muttered: "Horrible, I always forget a lot."

"Bring a couple of them with you next week, I'll look over them. If you come back I'll also start teaching you on correctly handling your ingredients. It'll be up to you to learn how to deal with your nerves though."

Nodding again Neville left the dungeon, feeling that even though she frightened him Luenda already helped him more than anyone had ever done. Hermione had helped him out quite a few times in class of course, but she had never offered to give him extra lessons that would help in the long run. Nor had she ever bothered to see what his exact problem was.

He had almost reached the entrance to the Gryffindor common room when it hit him: he had just spend over two hours in a room with a Slytherin without being taunted once, in fact after her first remark Luenda had been perfectly friendly to him. He wondered if maybe not all Slytherins were evil after all?

Over the next few weeks Luna started bringing more and more students with her. Some left upon seeing they would be taught by a Slytherin, but most stayed and started bringing their own friends in turn. Eventually the news spread to her own house as well and fellow Slytherins started to ask if they could come too. By the time the Easter holidays were upon them Luenda was teaching a class of about 75 people belonging to all different houses and years. This meant she spend her entire Sundays in the dungeons and had to redecorate "her" room, half of it was now devoted to a large work table that seated ten people at once and the other half contained five smaller tables for four where the students worked on their essays.

Although Luenda had had to step in rather a lot at first when Slytherins joined the group because they hated the rest of the school and the other houses hated them, they now got along reasonably well. She had been adamant that everyone should feel safe and get the same chances while in this room, so bullying was out of the question for everyone. Only very few had dared to test her patience on it and they had definitely come of worse because of it. A potions class, they discovered, was the perfect time for a skilled person to subtly alter something about their work or working conditions causing much more damage to their person than direct punishment. They had also learned it was a bad idea to ask how come Luenda was talking now or why she didn't answer teachers in class, because she would invariably go mute on them for the rest of the day and it was incredibly hard to understand what she meant without normal speech.

Luenda for her part was coming to enjoy her Sunday remedial potions, taking notes on the students' progress, explaining the root of their problems to them and watch them get better every week as they learned from her. True to Luna's prediction she had also made a couple more friends as an added bonus. She also gained more confidence and at last was ready to speak outside her dungeon room or the manor.

Luenda made her way back to the manor for the Easter holidays alone. Draco had opted to stay at Hogwarts this time to revise for his upcoming O.W.L.s as the alternative was spending another holiday locked up in his bedroom with a tutor. At Hogwarts he could at least study where he liked, take breaks and spend time with his friends when he wanted to. He was also a member of Umbridge's inquisitorial squad and there was no way he was going go miss an opportunity to dock points of annoying Gryffindors simply because he felt like it. No, life at Hogwarts was just too good right now to leave it. And so Luenda arrived at the manor by herself.

Narcissa looked even paler than she had done over Christmas when she met her in the hallway. This time however Luenda understood why Narcissa looked so pale: next to her stood none other than Bellatrix Lestrange, one of the Death Eaters that escaped Azkaban shortly after Christmas. Her face, although undoubtedly beautiful, was hollowed, her black curls looked as though they had a mind of themselves and there was a crazed look in those heavily lidded eyes that reminded her strongly of her mother's murderer. Alarmed Luenda whipped our her wand.

Bellatrix cackled loudly, whipping out her own wand. "You think of fighting me little girl? Me, the Dark Lord's most loyal follower?"

Luenda didn't answer, whatever reason for Bellatrix' presence was it couldn't be good and she wasn't about to become her next victim to be tortured out of her wits. Not without at least trying to defend herself.

"Bella, this is Luenda, the foster child I told you about." Narcissa spoke composedly, although her hands were shaking with anxiety.

Bellatrix stared at her for a moment. "You're Luenda Sarkany?!" she exclaimed suddenly; "The one who made the resuscitatio mentis?"

Luenda gave a curt nod, her wand still trained on the female Death Eater.

"The Dark Lord was most impressed with that, little girl. He even wants to meet you." Bellatrix said, now circling Luenda slowly to observe her better.

There was a small silence.

"Luenda put your wand away. That's my sister you're threatening." Narcissa snapped suddenly.

"Threatening? The little girl is no threat to me Cissy, I doubt she even knows how to duel." Bellatrix cackled.

As if to prove her point she shot three spells in quick succession at Luenda who parried away the first, ducked the second and quickly raised a silent protego charm to block the third.

"Impressive for a little girl." Bellatrix said approvingly, "Tell me, what else can you do?"

Luenda merely shrugged in reply and left to go up to her bedroom. Bellatrix was not satisfied with that however and set of after her. When she also entered Luenda's bedroom the girl glared and said more calmly than she felt:

"The deal is that I'm left alone in here as long as I take my meals downstairs with the family."

"I don't care what deals you've struck with my sister, little girl." Bellatrix snapped, "I want to know what you can do and why the Dark Lord is so interested in you."

Luenda shrugged again and made to get started on some potions.

"Answer me!" Bellatrix shrieked. And before Luenda could even register what happened Bellatrix had her under the cruciatus curse.

It was pain beyond pain, it was as though the emotional hurt of her mother dieing had just been made physical. Luenda was sure she was going to suffocate under it as she was writhing on the floor in agony for what felt like forever. When Bellatrix finally lifted the curse Luenda resembled nothing more than a crumbled, sobbing heap at the woman's feet.

"No more, please, no more." She pleaded.

"Aww, did it hurt, little girl?" Bellatrix cooed, Luenda could only nod feebly. "Are you going to be a good girl now?"

Luenda nodded again, trembling slightly.

"Good, what else can you do?" Bellatrix asked for a third time, her tone suddenly business-like. Luenda was quite unnerved by the sudden change.

"I don't know. Just non-verbal spellwork, potion making and I'm fairly good at Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures I guess." She answered quietly, terrified her answer wouldn't be deemed satisfactory again.

Bellatrix looked at her thoughtfully. "You've never been taught in the Dark Arts? Legilimency? Occlumency? Duelling? Warding?" Luenda shook her head at each subject. "You mean to tell me no-one ever bothered to teach you anything useful?" Bellatrix asked incredulously.

"Mum taught me how to do a protego charm pretty thoroughly." Luenda answered, her voice barely above a whisper now.

"And much good it did you. You don't even have the reflexes to use it if you're caught unawares." Bellatrix scoffed.

Luenda didn't answer. She didn't care much for fighting, but she didn't dare say this to Bellatrix even if she'd wanted to tell her. After a long pause Bellatrix said:

"Starting tomorrow I will be teaching you. Be ready at eight."

Luenda stared at her, feeling utterly bewildered. But Bellatrix didn't speak again, she merely conjured up a chair and made herself comfortable, watching Luenda's every move as the girl finally got up from the floor and set to work on a pain numbing potion. She had a funny feeling she would be needing one sooner rather than later.

The next day Bellatrix proved to be an incredibly tough teacher. After testing Luenda's skill in the various fields she'd named the day before until the girl ached all over Bellatrix had decided on starting with legilimency and occlumency first because she seemed to have some aptitude for them.

Luenda picked up the basics on legilimency extremely quick indeed. She possessed a mental subtlety that made it near impossible for Bellatrix to even notice the girl entering her mind in time to raise some kind of defence. Once she did raise her defences however it became a lot harder for the young witch to gain access to her mind. Bellatrix did not gain the impression Luenda couldn't break through them however, she purposefully added weak spots in them after all, but the girl seemed reluctant to breaking into her mind so brutally, opting to try and find a way around them instead. At first this tactic worked reasonably well, but as she made her defences stronger it became a lot harder to go around them. After working on this the entire morning they switched over to occlumency. Something that proved to be a lot harder for the young witch.

Luenda could protect herself perfectly well, but only by raising a protego charm. It didn't help to tell her to put her wand away either, because she could raise one wandlessly, leaving Bellatrix to stare at her completely astounded for a moment before continuing to teach her. By the end of the afternoon Luenda had made absolutely no progress on the actual art of occlumency however. Tired and with a terrible headache Bellatrix left the girl to her own devices for the evening, while she watched her again from a chair in her potions lab. Half an hour later Luenda presented her with a headache cure, which was more than welcome after the day's work.

They resumed the rest of the week in the same fashion, spending the mornings on legilimency, the afternoons on occlumency and Bellatrix watching Luenda in the evening after a headache cure while the latter either worked on a potion or read a book, occasionally taking notes.

By the second week Luenda had a thorough understanding of legilimency and only needed more practice in this field. Bellatrix therefore moved on to training her reflexes during the mornings, meaning Luenda was now desperate for a pain numbing potion every hour. Not that Bellatrix allowed her a chance to take any before reflex training was finished, regardless of how much she begged for a break. The afternoons were still devoted to occlumency, on which Luenda was finally starting to make some progress. The holidays passed quickly in this fashion and it wasn't until it was time to go back to Hogwarts that Luenda realised she had spend almost the entire holiday locked up in her bedroom with a notorious Death Eater and had enjoyed the experience immensely. If someone had told her she would do so before the start of the Easter holidays she would have thought them mad, but now she realised it was pretty much the same thing as the students taking remedial potions with her getting along, unlikely as it had seemed at first.


	6. Chapter 6

I don't own anything other than my OC.

 **Exams**

The first day back after the Easter holidays was not a good one. With only a couple of weeks left to go until the exams fellow students were constantly stepping up to her to ask if she would be willing to up the number of remedial potions to help them revise for the subject. Luenda was not willing to do so as it was about high time she started revising for her own exams. Her answer therefore was invariably the same:

"No, there is nothing more I can do for you now other than make you unnecessarily nervous. Once a week will be enough."

By the time she got to charms that afternoon Luenda was anxious for the day to be over. The teachers too had decided it was about time for revision, so rather than learning anything new they were being tested on everything they learned over the year and were told to practise various charms. Luenda was still tired and achy from her lessons with Bellatrix over the holidays and as a result a lot less attentive. She still performed reasonably well though.

They had just set of for the Slytherin common room after class when they heard a loud bang go off in a nearby corridor. Of course everyone immediately turned around to go and have a look, unsure of whether or not she really wanted to know Luenda followed. What she saw nearly made her jaw drop. Someone had turned the corridor into a swamp, it was a very impressive bit of magic indeed. Or at least in her opinion it was, her classmates immediately started saying things like:

"Who would even waste their time on something stupid like this?"

"Probably some stupid Gryffindor thinking he's clever."

Umbridge seemed to agree with her classmates, for she soon came running over searching frantically for the perpetrators and chasing the Weasley twins down into the courtyard once she found them. Everyone followed her of course, wanting to see what would happen to them. Luenda for her part wasn't remotely interested to witness another's punishment, so she went the other way down to the dungeons where she made herself comfortable in 'her' classroom to start on some revision.

The story of the Weasley twins outsmarting Umbridge and leaving altogether found its way to Luenda the next day through Luna, who was more than happy to give her more details than she cared for. Thereafter she heard it about a hundred times more over the next few weeks from people recounting the story to each other, making it an ever more thrilling story with every retelling. Umbridge herself was in a terrible mood after the twins' departure and was even less pleased with how many students suddenly started falling ill during her classes because they were suffering from 'umbridgitis'. Even the Slytherins, to whom she had always been kind, now constantly had to walk on tiptoes or risk getting detention.

So Luenda was eager for Sunday to arrive, a day solely devoted to what she did best: potion making.

It was in the second week that surprise arrived at breakfast. Tenebris was bringing Luenda a letter, something that certainly had not happened before. She never wrote to the Malfoys, who respected her wish not to exchange letters. And the only other person she was close enough to to write was Luna and she was right here at Hogwarts. Curiously Luenda took the letter off of Tenebris' leg and opened it.

 _Little girl,_

 _Cissy has told me you prefer to be left alone, I don't care. If I want to tell you something I will and you will like it understood?_

 _Now, I want to remind you to study hard. Having taught you myself over the past few weeks I know what you can do and you're in for severe punishment if you don't come out top of your year. Also keep practising occlumency and legilimency, I will be testing you the moment you come back and you will better have improved._

 _Yours sincerely_

Well, no pressure there, Luenda thought, disappointed to see she was also still being referred to as _little girl_ by Bellatrix. She was certain that was whom the letter was from despite it not being signed, for no-one else called her little girl or disregarded her wishes like that for that matter. On the other hand, he woman had chosen to write to her hadn't she? Just like she had chosen to teach her over the holidays, that had to count for something didn't it? She hadn't written to Draco, Luenda was sure of it. Draco had never even met Bellatrix, so surely he would have looked puzzled as to whom was writing to him if she had, maybe even have come up to her to ask who was writing him an unsigned letter.

Thinking about the letter also made Luenda realise she hadn't practiced occlumency or legilimency so far though and she cringed. If Bellatrix ever found out she was slacking on her lessons there would be hell to pay. She immediately resolved to practice occlumency every morning and evening when she was alone and legilimency on Sundays when she had ample opportunity to enter students' minds undetected. By doing so she would also have a chance to see which ones needed the most attention until the exams, so it really was a win-win for everyone.

With only three days to go to the exams Luenda was once again studying in her secluded dungeon classroom when Neville walked in. Being a fifth year his exams had already started of course and she could see they were taking their toll on him, Neville looked even more miserable than after his first remedial potions when she had told him to do something about his anxiety.

"I... I..." Neville started nervously.

"Sit." Luenda instructed, pointing at the seat opposite her.

Neville did.

"You want to talk to me?" she asked him.

Neville nodded, suddenly unsure if coming here had been a good idea had been such a good idea after all.

"It is if you have a question." Luenda said, startling the boy.

"You... you can do legilimency?" he asked in an awed voice.

Luenda nodded, then said: "But that's not why you're here."

Neville shook his head for a moment before speaking. "I was hoping you could help me revising for potions tomorrow. I'm going to be rubbish again without your help." He almost cried.

Luenda looked thoughtful for a moment before giving an answer. "What do you want to do after you leave Hogwarts, Neville?" she asked.

"I want to be an herbologist." He answered confused.

"Then why do you care about potions so much?"

"I want to make you proud." He muttered and even quieter he resumed "And I'm afraid my gran will punish me if I fail and Professor Snape said that anyone who fails will suffer his displeasure."

"The only person you need to care about making proud is yourself Neville." Luenda told him softly, "You can stay here to revise if you like, but I can't help you. You learned more than anyone else in here in only a couple of months time. All I would be able to do now is to point out mistakes and flaws and that'll only make you more nervous. You need to focus on your strengths Neville, you have a better understanding of ingredients than anyone else in here because you are an herbologist, use that to your benefit instead of trying to be something you're not for someone who doesn't matter."

Neville nodded and they studied together in silence for the rest of the evening. He was just about to open the door to leave with ten minutes to curfew when Luenda spoke again:

"Neville, if it helps, I'm already proud of you."

He turned around and stared at her for a moment. Luenda smiled at him, a rare expression on her otherwise focused visage. Suddenly it mattered very little to him if he passed his O.W.L. tomorrow or not: Luenda, the one person who had ever taken the time to teach him, who never lost patience with him, was proud of him. It was more than he could ever have hoped for. Feeling a lot more light hearted he made his way back to Gryffindor tower.

Luenda's first exam was Herbology. She fondly remembered Neville's endless reminiscences about the various herbs and plants while filling in the exam paper, sure she had to have done really well once she finished it. Transfiguration and Charms also went extremely well, a large thank you to her mother and her insistence to teach Luenda non-verbal spells since the age of 12 was certainly in order here. It also didn't hurt that she had been studying both subjects three years longer than her peers. Potions of course was a breeze, which was to be expected as she had always been a natural in the subject. It also looked as though most of her classmates were doing really well too and she felt a surge of pride as she saw Professor Snape looking down Colin Creevey's cauldron, a Gryffindor boy she had taught on Sundays, and had to refrain from commenting meaning he couldn't find anything wrong with the boy's work. At least not at first glance, Luenda had seen him getting a little careless when cutting up his ingredients, no doubt he was nervous about the exam, and knew the potion would be slightly too runny once he finished it, but she still thought it a job very well done.

As usual Luenda and Luna worked together during Care of Magical Creatures, for which Hagrid wanted them to work with fire-crabs. Luenda enjoyed working with animals in general as they didn't judge, give them lobe and they'll love you back unconditionally simple as that. She thought she had done well on this one too, although she got a slight burn when she pushed Luna out of the way because one their crab tried to roast her alive. It was only a small injury though and she had quickly healed it herself, impressing a nearby Hufflepuff boy who immediately started asking how to do it. She promised to teach him after the exams. Defence Against the Dark Arts was probably the worst exam Luenda would ever sit through. Preferring to understand what was in a text rather than learn it by heart she found herself unable to answer most of the questions as nearly all of them asked for direct quotes from the book. Luenda was certain she failed and couldn't concentrate on anything that evening, the thought of how Bellatrix might react to her failure haunting her all night.

Arithmancy, Astronomy and History of Magic went okay. Having studied hard as instructed by Bellatrix, Luenda thought her marks would be well enough. She doubted if she would make it to top of the year though, her mother might always have called her gifted and she was a hard worker by nature, but she didn't fool herself into believing there was no-one out there with a higher skill than she had in any subject. In fact the only subject she was sure to come out on top of was Potions, because she had been able to gain a good impression of her peers' general level every Sunday.

Grateful the exams were finally over, which meant no more lessons and no more revision, Luenda went outside a couple of days before he end of term. She had hoped to go with Luna because it had been over a week since they had been able to spend some time alone together and even longer since that time hadn't involved potions or homework. Luenda longed to hear Luna talk about her extraordinary creatures again, but the other girl was nowhere to be found. So instead she sat alone under a tree near the lake reading a book, wishing Bellatrix was there. She had become used to the woman watching her intently while she read, no doubt already planning on whatever she could teach her next, and Luenda suddenly found herself missing the older witch dearly. Regardless of her cruelly hard teaching methods and simple disregard of her name, and in extend her identity, Luenda could feel Bellatrix really did care about her and only had her best interests at heart.

"Luenda," a voice suddenly roused her from her thoughts, "Professor Snape wants to see you."

Luenda looked up quizzically, the girl in front of her was someone she had never really met before but she looked older than she was. Eventually she nodded and got up to leave.

"Hang on, I wanted to ask you something else too." The other girl said and Luenda waited for her go continue. "Word has it you van do non-verbal spells."

Luenda nodded, still waiting for the girl's question.

"See the thing is in sixth and seventh year you have to learn to do them, but I can't seem to get the hang of them and I was wondering if maybe you could help me a bit next year? They say in N.E.W.T.s you have to do be able to do them and I'm afraid I'll fail if I don't get some extra help." The girl rambled.

"Meet me the first week of term, I'll see if I can help you." Luenda answered, then turned again and left for the dungeons.

Upon arriving there she saw that Draco too was sitting in Professor Snape's office.

"I have called you both here because it is my unfortunate duty to inform you that your father," he nodded at Draco "your guardian" he nodded at Luenda "has been arrested yesterday."

"What?!" Draco flared up at once, "Why was he arrested?!"

"Because of Potter. He went to the ministry last night, the Dark Lord had send your father to retrieve something there for him. But he also needed Potter to get it. Surprisingly enough Potter was not alone, he had brought five friends. Something Lucius had not counted upon, then they were joined by some members of the Order, no-one knows how they even knew there was something going on."

At this point Luenda notices a slight shift in his eyes, meaning he was hiding something, but decided not to comment on it for the time being. Draco was looking more grim with every word.

"The Dark Lord himself had no choice but to move into the open when Lucius and the other Death Eaters had been thwarted by Potter and his friends. Unfortunately he could not prevent Lucius' arrest however, so he is now awaiting his trial in Azkaban." Professor Snape finished the story.

"I'm going to kill Potter." Draco hissed through clenched teeth.

"The Dark Lord wants to kill Potter himself, so I'd say it would be unwise for you to do so." Snape replied calmly.

"Wasn't Bellatrix there?" Luenda asked.

"Yes, she was. Why?"

"You don't mean Bellatrix Lestrange do you?" Draco asked confused.

"Yes, I do." Luenda answered him, then turned her attention back to the potions master; "Where is she now?"

"All I know is that she wasn't arrested." He replied, scrutinising her.

Luenda nodded, feeling relieved and made to leave. Draco too stood up, looking both confused and murderous.

"How do you know Bellatrix Lestrange?" he asked once they were outside the office.

"I met her over the Easter holidays." Luenda said simply.

"What? But father hates her, he would never allow her into the manor." Draco answered astonished.

Luenda merely shrugged and went her own way back outside, planning to enjoy the rest of this beautiful day. She did feel bad for Lucius, but unlike what she had seen in Draco she was not out for revenge. There was nothing she or Draco could do at this point except to wait. Either Lucius would be convicted or he would not, Luenda's guess was he would be. After that they could only hope the Dark Lord would forgive him and break him out of Azkaban as soon as possible.

For now Luenda went looking for Luna again, finding her in the dungeon room they had occupied so often for potions.

"Why aren't you outside?" she asked her friend.

"I met Lucius Malfoy yesterday." Luna answered in her usual dreamy tones.

"Why should that mean you can't go outside?" Luenda asked reasonably.

"Oh I can go outside, I just wanted to talk to you in private. I don't like Lucius Malfoy much."

Luenda didn't answer, not understanding why Luna wanted to talk in private about Lucius.

"You know he's a Death Eater right? Harry Potter said so in the interview for _the Quibbler."_ She paused, waiting for a response. When Luenda simply nodded she went on: "He was at the ministry last night too. He wanted to steal Harry's prophecy, it smashed in the end so now Harry won't ever know what it said. That wasn't very nice of him, do you think?" Luna explained.

Luenda sighed. "No, it wasn't. Lucius has flaws, but I can hardly let that cloud my vision of him. I live with him, Luna, I can't go judging him because he's a Death Eater. He's also the man who took me to Gringotts where I learned of my inheritance, he told me more about my family in the past year alone than I have ever known in my life and he respects my wish not to talk about what happened over the summer, he's even been protecting me from Amelia Bones from the ministry since I've started talking again so she can't bug me about it either. He has his flaws, but he's not a bad man." She spoke in Lucius' defence.

"You think so? He didn't even care if his fellow Death Eaters killed us as long as he got the prophecy from Harry." Luna retaliated, rather more aggressively than Luenda thought her capable of.

"Do you think I'm a bad person?" Luenda asked.

"Does it matter just now?"

"Yes, it matters a lot. First of all you are my friend, which in itself is reason enough. And second, almost the entire school hates me only because I was sorted into Slytherin." She explained.

"I don't know. I didn't think so, because you were always nice to everyone, but if you like Death Eaters I'm not sure I can still trust you." Luna replied thoughtfully.

"My father was a Death Eater. Lucius and the others were there on the Dark Lord's orders, do you know what happens if they don't follow his orders? He tortures and kills them Luna. Sometimes even in front of their comrades. I've seen it."

"So you've even been to Death Eater meetings already?" Luna asked in a mildly interested voice, as though this was an everyday conversation and not one that questioned their entire friendship.

"Of course not, I'm too young." Luenda answered, feeling more than a little annoyed.

"Then how would you know?"

"Bellatrix taught me legilimency over the Easter holidays. I saw it in her memories."

"So you're friends with people like Lucius Malfoy and even Bellatrix Lestrange and you want to be a Death Eater? No, I don't think I want to be friends with someone like that."

"I don't want to be a Death Eater. According to Lucius and Bellatrix the Dark Lord just wants to meet me. I suppose things will be decided then, it's not like I'm getting much choice in the matter. And Lucius is my guardian, he gave me a chance when no-one else would. So yes, I am thankful for that and everything else he does for me."

"And what about Bellatrix Lestrange? You don't need to like her."

"No I don't. I don't have to like anyone. But for some reason she took an interest in me over the Easter holidays and we spend a lot of time together. She wants me for me and not for selfish reasons like the Malfoys did at first." Luenda said angrily, why did she suddenly have to explain her every relationship to Luna?

"She killed Sirius Black. He was a friend of Harry's"

"I see you're not questioning him about his alliances." Luenda replied bitterly; "Maybe you're right, maybe we can't trust each other. Have a nice holiday."

With that she left the classroom. Not wanting to go outside anymore were the sun was shining and other students were having fun she went to the dormitory to start packing early. It would give her something to do at least.

 **A/N** I do not hate Luna's character and she will remain important to Luenda, but I also don't think Luna would still want to be friends with her after what happened at the ministry. Luna has fought the Death Eaters there directly and here Luenda is, defending them. So of course they would have a fight over it.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N** I debated earlier today to post it like this or keep working on it a little longer, but in the end I decided to keep it the way it is. This way the chapter is solely devoted to Luenda and Bellatrix getting closer and I kind of liked that a lot, so there you go.

I don't own anything apart from my OC.

 **A year ago**

Luenda was glad to arrive at platform 9 ¾, where Narcissa was waiting for her and Draco. Her last few days at Hogwarts had been an absolute nightmare without Luna. Of course she had made some other friends over time, but none of them could ever compare to Luna. They didn't understand her like Luna, Luenda had never felt so lonely in her life and she was half wishing she had never met the blonde, because before she had at least never really missed the friendship. She thought it was ironic that such a crowded place could make someone feel so lonely.

Narcissa was overjoyed to see her son again and pulled Draco in for a hug, which he allowed only grudgingly. Once she released him he immediately started telling her every detail about what had been going on since the Christmas holidays as he had not seen his mother since. Luenda noticed how often the name Potter popped up in his story and how much dislike Draco harboured for the other boy. It was odd to hear about him in such a negative way when Luna had so often told her nothing but good about the boy.

Arriving back at the manor Luenda made to go upstairs, but was held back by Narcissa.

"I know you want to go and see Bella, but you'd do better to leave her alone just now." She told her.

"Why?" Luenda asked, surprised.

"The Dark Lord was very disappointed with her after what happened at the ministry and she ehm... didn't take it too well and she always had a tendency to take out her anger on the first person to come near her. Best to leave her alone for a while until she calms down." Narcissa explained a little awkwardly.

Luenda nodded, deciding that she would see Bellatrix in the morning anyway. When she reached her bedroom however she noticed the door was ajar, which struck her as odd. She had always closed her door with a spell she'd learned from her mother a few years ago. This meant that either Bellatrix was waiting for her in her bedroom or someone had been in since the Easter holidays, most likely still Bellatrix.

Luenda was proven right the moment she entered her bedroom. Bellatrix was indeed in there. But unexpectedly she did not appear to be waiting for her, in fact she wasn't even awake. The woman was currently fast asleep, curled up on Luenda's bed, looking more peaceful than Luenda had ever seen her. She also looked as if she had just broken out of Azkaban all over again though. Her hair was matted with dirt, there were scratches all over her face, the clothes she was wearing were covered in dirt and dried blood, she smelled as if she'd not washed for days and winced when she shifted a little. Picking up a vial of pain numbing potion from the lab first Luenda decided to wake the woman up, she was clearly in desperate need of some treatment.

"Bellatrix?" she whispered, sitting down on the bed and lightly touching the woman's cheek.

Immediately her eyes sprang open, round with fear. Bellatrix tried to sit up, but winced again and remained where she was.

"Take this." Luenda said softly, hoping not to startle Bellatrix further; "It'll help with the pain."

Bellatrix looked at her. "Luenda?" she croaked with obvious difficulty.

Luenda nodded, her heart breaking into a thousand little pieces. Gone was the fierce woman she'd met over the Easter holidays, she was now looking at a fragile, broken, almost childlike version of Bellatrix.

"Take this." She repeated, slowly pouring the potion down Bellatrix' throat. When she tried to sit up again however, Luenda stopped her. "Don't, I want to properly assess your injuries first. And then you're taking a bath." She added as an afterthought.

Consulting about a dozen reference books Luenda performed a few simple diagnostic spells on Bellatrix, who had flinched the instant Luenda had drawn her wand. Her heart broke again, this was the woman who not three months ago had laughed at the very same gesture when she had fully intended to try and defend herself. This time she was only trying to help her for Merlin's sake!

"A couple of broken ribs and if your face is any indication I'd bet on a lot of wounds all over your body." Luenda informed her, "You could use some food, water and sleep as well. Physically you will be alright again soon enough."

"What do you mean physically?" Bellatrix asked in a tone that suggested she might soon faint.

Luenda sighed, "I don't think I've ever seen someone so broken, Bellatrix. I will try to help, but I will need to know exactly what he did to you in order to do that, so I can't do anything until you're ready to tell me."

Bellatrix just nodded, tears forming in her eyes at the memory. Luenda quietly fixed the broken ribs after a quick look at one of the books now strewn around the room and helped Bellatrix get over to the bathroom, where she undressed her until she was left in her underwear before helping her into the tub.

"I'll ask Pip to bring over some clean underwear and a tray. Call me when you're done." Luenda told her numbly, trying not to stare at the various wounds and scars that littered Bellatrix' body.

"Don't leave me, please." Bellatrix pleaded, tears starting to roll down her cheeks.

"I won't, I'll be right in the next room if you need me." Luenda said reassuringly. "But I do need to get some potions started for those." She pointed at the wounds.

"No, don't go." Bellatrix continued to cry.

"I'll leave both doors open, okay? But I can't stay in the room when you're naked." Luenda compromised.

Bellatrix nodded, looking both scared and defeated. Luenda swore silently that she would kill the Dark Lord for doing this to her. Where did that man think he got the right to break down Bellatrix like this?

Luenda remained in her bedroom over the next three days with a very whiny Bellatrix, who was asking for a pain numbing potion about every half hour or so. Luenda refused to give her any though, except in the evenings before going to sleep so she would be able to rest properly. Apart from tending to her wounds she also had to force feed the woman every few hours under loud complaints that she wasn't hungry even though Luenda could hear her stomach growling.

Still, Luenda preferred this whiny, complaining Bellatrix over the broken down childlike girl she had been only three days ago. It meant she was at least regaining some of her strength even if she still slept in Luenda's room, clinging onto the young witch as if she were a lifeline and was terrified to be left alone when taking a bath.

Luenda sighed. She knew that the Dark Lord would soon call upon Bellatrix for missions again, but the woman was far from ready to leave Luenda's bedroom. It seemed to be the one place she still felt safe and Luenda wondered if Bellatrix had perhaps been hiding in her room ever since she returned from the ministry. Well... after the Dark Lord was done with her anyway. Perhaps she ought to ask Narcissa she thought, but quickly dismissed the idea. Not that she minded doing it, but Narcissa should have been the one taking care of Bellatrix in this state, not her and she was angry with her foster mother for not taking care of her sister.

Luenda watched as Bellatrix sat on her bed, reading one of the many books on healing magic, something she had taken to doing over the past few days. Luenda thought it a little ironic that someone who tortured and killed for the fun of it was now sitting on her bed reading one of her books on healing magic of all things. Even more ironic was that Bellatrix was calmest when she was reading them. Other times she would always be on edge, looking around anxiously for anything out of the ordinary, as if she was expecting someone to suddenly appear out of nothing and attack.

"Bellatrix?" Luenda asked.

"Hmm..." Bellatrix responded, not looking up from the book.

"I was wondering why you were in my room the day I came back?"

Bellatrix looked up. "Where else was I supposed to go?" she asked.

"I don't know. Don't you have your own room? Narcissa told me to stay away from you that day, so I don't think she expected you to be in here either." Luenda answered; "Not that I don't want you here of course." She hastily added.

"I missed you." She shrugged.

Luenda's jaw dropped. She had assumed she must mean something to Bellatrix after the woman had chosen to teach and write her, but for hear Bellatrix had missed her was a whole different matter.

"Close your mouth, you look stupid." Bellatrix admonished.

Luenda blushed. "Sorry, I just didn't expect... I mean I hoped... but..." she stuttered.

"You didn't think I like you? Of course I like you girl, I don't teach just anyone." Bellatrix answered incredulously.

"Sorry," Luenda said again; "it's just... You never even call me by my name. It's a little confusing." She said embarrassed.

"I don't like your name." Bellatrix responded simply.

Luenda just stared at the older witch.

"Can I ask you something now?" She asked, when Luenda just kept staring.

Luenda nodded.

"Why do you care so much about me?"

"I like that tou're fierce and independent and that you have a mind of your own. You don't care what anyone else says, you'll always do what you want. I like that in a person." Looking at the floor she added: "And you're the first person to want me for me since my mother died."

"You know, no-one has ever said they liked something about me." Bellatrix said thoughtfully.

"You mean not even your parents liked you?" Luenda asked incredulously.

"If they did they had an funny way of showing it. Punishment meant the cruciatus curse and could be given for pretty much anything. From breathing to loudly to putting my sisters' robes on fire when they annoyed me." Bellatrix snorted.

"I can see why they would punish you for that." Luenda laughed.

A smile appeared on Bellatrix' face. "Yes so can I. Still they deserved it for annoying the hell out of me. Snotty little brats they were, they're the reason I don't want kids."

Luenda laughed even harder and snuggled up to Bellatrix, together they lay comfortably on the bed for a while.

"You miss her, don't you?" Bellatrix asked, suddenly serious again.

Luenda looked up quizzically for a moment, then realising who Bellatrix meant she nodded.

"What happened?"

"I'd rather not talk about it." She answered, her voice barely above a whisper.

"You need to talk about it. I'll tell you about the punishment I got after the ministry if you tell me about your mother."

Luenda sighed, knowing that she might as well tell Bellatrix, because she would find out sooner or later anyway. "It was the second week of July. Mum had a friend over. Well, he wasn't really a friend, but that's what she called the men whenever one of them came over so I had to stay in my room. She had been unable to find a decent job after I was born you see. Usually I'd hear exactly what was going on downstairs, but that night everything was silent. It was really weird so after about half an hour I went downstairs to check. And then I saw her. She was dead. The man was still... well... doing you-know-what with her." She choked. "He had killed her, she was completely covered in blood and deep cuts and... and I screamed and he saw me and he had this really scary look in his eyes and well..." she was crying now; "I lost control and everything just caught fire and... and... and I killed him. I didn't mean to, but I killed him. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." She cried.

Bellatrix didn't respond, the revelation that this girl, the girl who had just spend the last three days patching her up again, the girl who had brewed the resuscitatio mentis for then when they were about to be broken out of Azkaban, the girl who read so much about healing magic, had killed a man was a lot to take in. The fact that she felt so heartbroken about it wasn't at all surprising, it was probably killing her inside that she had committed such a crime. But the man had just killed her mother and probably would have done the same to her if she hadn't killed him. Then again Luenda did seem the type of person who would rather die then harm another human being, so she couldn't tell her that. There was nothing Bellatrix could say to console the girl at all, least of all when she was so shocked herself. So Bellatrix just held Luenda while she sobbed her heart out. Her own heart breaking for the young witch.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N** So... I already failed to get up a chapter last week. I'm so sorry about that! All of a sudden my life was being like - knock knock – "Ehm... yeah?" "You missed me right?" And I was totally unprepared for that! So yeah I'm sorry, but here it is anyway:

 **Update** As this chapter was a little rushed, I came back to it and noticed some mistakes, some due to autocorrect (yup, I work from my phone) others due to the fact that my brain always rushes faster through things and I simply can't keep up. So no real differences to what is being said, just some alterations to have it flow better and sometimes having it make more sense.

I don't own anything other than my OC.

 **A special meeting**

A week into the summer holidays Bellatrix was almost herself again. Sort of. She still flinched whenever someone drew their wand and was likely to retaliate by putting the perpetrator under the cruciatus curse. Something that bothered Luenda somewhat because Bellatrix had started teaching her on various wards this time and she needed her wand for those.

Bellatrix seemed to have really taken to reading her books as well as they were now reading together almost every single day. Luenda hoped this truly was a permanent change, but she had a feeling Bellatrix would drop the habit the first time her mark would burn again. It was as though Luenda's thinking this was the signal the Dark Lord had been waiting for, because at that precise moment Bellatrix jumped, gripping her arm. Luenda just caught a brief glimpse of her frightened expression before she disapparated.

"My Lord." Bellatrix said, kissing the hem of his robes.

"Bellatrix." Voldemort acknowledged lazily; "I have had some time to think during your absence over the past, what is it now, two weeks?"

"Yes my Lord." She replied in a voice tight with fear.

"You seem to have recovered well after your punishment," he mused, "yet something has changed, has it not?"

Bellatrix flinched. Yes, something had most definitely changed after her punishment and she knew she'd only get worse if she told him.

"There was a time when you would have done everything within your power to deserve my forgiveness. What happened to your loyalty, Bellatrix? Why haven't you suggested for Draco to replace his father yet? Why have you not yet introduced me to the girl when you live in the same house and you know very well how much I would like to meet her? It's been two weeks and you haven't done a single thing that might lessen my disappointment with you. Why is that, Bellatrix?"

"My loyalty is with you of course, my Lord." She answered; "I am sorry to have to tell you that I believe the girl isn't ready to meet you as of yet, my Lord. As for Draco, I have hardly met him at all so far, but it appears Cissy has been babying him so much he wouldn't be much of an added value anyway."

In truth she didn't want to bring either child to him, nor after receiving such brutal punishment. It wasn't that she wasn't used to the brutal treatment, because she was, but the girl was the one thing she knew she could never have to her: a daughter. And she would do anything to protect her, even if that meant going against her Master's will.

"I will be the judge of that, Bellatrix. You will bring Draco here tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock sharp and you have exactly one week to have the girl ready. No excuses." He said in his usual cold, hard voice.

"Yes, of course, my Lord." Bellatrix answered him fearfully before disapparating again.

"Draco!" Bellatrix bellowed the moment she re-entered the manor.

"Yes, aunt Bella?" Draco asked tentatively. He hadn't forgotten how she had hexed him the first time he met her and didn't care for a repeat performance.

"Be ready tomorrow morning at 8:30. The Dark Lord wants to meet you, He wants you to replace Lucius." She told him.

Draco looked ecstatic at the very idea.

"You won't be so happy after your first torture session, I promise you." Bellatrix commented dryly and proceeded upstairs.

"Little girl?" she asked, entering the bedroom; "We need to talk." She said a little anxiously.

"About what?" Luenda asked confused. Bellatrix had only just returned from the Dark Lord, what on earth would she need to talk about?

"The Dark Lord wants to meet you." Bellatrix answered quietly.

"Yes, I know. You told me before." Luenda replied, completely nonplussed.

"No, little girl, he wants to meet you by next week." Bellatrix said, impatient now. Seriously, the girl was supposed to be clever, why was she being so slow on the uptake?

"Oh." Was all Luenda said.

"Oh? Is that all you have to say about it?" Bellatrix asked incredulously.

"What do you want me to say? That I don't want to be a Death Eater? Lucius told me I was too young for that anyway, so why should meeting him bother me?"

"Because he has high expectations of you, that's why. And because he also wants Draco to join too, so you might very well be expected to as well. Also, you can't tell him you don't want to be a Death Eater. I don't want you killed." Bellatrix snarled.

"Then what am I supposed to tell him?" Luenda asked.

"Tell him you're not ready. Tell him that you need more training or something. I don't care. Just don't tell him you don't want to be a Death Eater." She was getting more and more agitated now.

"Do you want me to become a Death Eater?" Luenda asked.

"Not after the punishment I received two weeks ago." Bellatrix replied, taken aback.

Luenda nodded. "Then why can't I tell him I want to be cure people, not harm them?"

Before Bellatrix could answer however there was a loud crack and a house-elf appeared.

Bowing deeply the creature said: "Mistress, we is finished redoing your manor and emptying your other estates."

"Tiri!" Luenda squealed happily; "I completely forgot about the manor. Can you take me and Bellatrix there now please? I'd like to see it."

The elf obliged, but as she made to take Bellatrix' hand the woman pulled away.

"Don't you dare touch me you filthy creature!" she shrieked; "Girl, what's this all about?!"

Luenda blushed; "Oh right, you don't know yet. I inherited a couple of estates apparently, Narcissa visited them with me over Christmas. I asked my elves to fix up Sarkany Manor for me. Please come?"

With another loud crack they appeared at Sarkany Manor where they were greeted by the other two house-elves. After a tour and a lot of explanations to Bellatrix they settled in the recently modernised living room, joined by the elves at Luenda's insistence.

"So where's the duelling room?" Bellatrix asked, glaring daggers at the elves.

"What would I need a duelling room for?" Luenda responded.

"To practise of course. This place is perfect to continue your training properly." Bellatrix said incredulously.

"I told you, I want to cure people, not harm them."

"No-one said anything about harming anyone little girl, but you've got to learn to defend yourself." Bellatrix replied exasperated.

"I can defend myself."

"Really?" Bellatrix said and without warning she shot a nasty stinging hex at Luenda, who unfortunately was too late to avoid it. "So, you can defend yourself?" she asked casually.

Luenda was silent. After a moment she turned to the elves and said in a deadpan voice: "Add a duelling room when you have the time please."

Bellatrix and Luenda spend as much time as possible at Sarkany Manor the next week. The forest around it offered for a nice peaceful environment where they could practice during the day, without someone being alarmed by Luenda's screams as she found herself quite often being hit by the cruciatus curse. When she asked Bellatrix why she was using that particular curse the latter merely responded that it hurts so much she would be learning more quickly and that she'd also need to learn to withstand it at some point so she might as well start now. The woods also happened to offer a wide variety of herbs growing there in the wild, which Luenda liked to harvest to use as potion ingredients. Even though she hadn't had much time for brewing ever since she returned from Hogwarts this summer.

That specific morning however a week had passed since the Dark Lord had called Bellatrix to him, meaning that Luenda was supposed to be meeting him today. Nervous and still not having a clue what to say to him without outright lying if he asked her to become a Death Eater Luenda waited for Bellatrix to take her to him.

Upon arriving they saw that there was a number of other Death Eaters in the room. Luenda recognised most of them either from the wanted posters or their visits to Malfoy Manor last summer. Only two of them were unfamiliar faces to her and looked quite young, so she supposed the reason was that they were new recruits. Like Draco and maybe me... she thought bitterly. The Dark Lord appointed a seat for Bellatrix to take. As there were no other seats available Luenda understood she was to remain standing in plain view of all present Death Eaters, which made her uncomfortable already.

"Luenda Sarkany." The Dark Lord announced and Luenda felt all eyes on her.

As she glanced carefully at each Death Eater in turn she noticed that some of the men, especially the two unfamiliar ones, were basically undressing her with their eyes, no doubt they already associated her with her mother, even though they didn't really look alike much. Two others looked at her with a different kind and rather unnerving sort of interest. The rest of the men either looked bored and disinterested or slightly curious. Apart from Bellatrix there was only one other woman in the room and it was this woman that made Luenda feel self-conscious with the way she was staring at her.

"You remained unknown of for quite a long time, did you not Luenda? I believe you lived with your mother until early last summer?" the Dark Lord inquired.

Luenda nodded, trying not to look at the woman, who was still staring at her with hungry eyes. Eyes the colour of the sky on a beautiful summer's day she noticed.

"Answer me!" the Dark Lord's shrill voice sounded suddenly.

"Y... yes, Sir." Luenda squeaked startled and to be honest quite frightened.

"But now are where you belong, living among your equals." He mused; "And already you have served me well. You brewed the resuscitatio mentis for me a couple of months ago to help those of us who were thrown to the dementors by our enemies."

Luenda didn't answer. What was she supposed to say? In any case her eyes had accidentally fallen on the woman with the clear light blue eyes again, unfortunately coming to a rest on the woman's round full breasts, leaving her momentarily breathless for some inexplicable reason.

"But Lucius told me only a short while later that you were unwilling to join me. Bellatrix confirmed only a week ago that you are not ready. What makes you so averse to joining me?" the Dark Lord's high pick voice cut through Luenda's thoughts once again.

"I'd like to be a healer my Lord, dealing pain isn't in my nature." Luenda responded in a remarkably calm voice, but finding herself unable to look away from the woman any longer.

"On the contrary." He responded, a smirk evident in his voice; "Those who are best at curing those who have been hurt often prove themselves most gifted at dealing pain as well."

Luenda thought about that. If it was true that these went hand in hand then that would explain why Bellatrix could be putting her under the cruciatus curse for the umpteenth time that day and reading on healing magic with her an hour later.

"And you have proven yourself talented in that area already, have you not? Word has it you killed your own mother and her boyfriend, did you not?"

"No." Luenda answered, finally tearing her gaze from the woman and turning angrily to face the Dark Lord.

"No?" the Dark Lord inquired quizzically.

"No, I didn't kill her." Luenda replied, keeping her voice as calm as possible.

"I see." He pondered aloud. Turning to Bellatrix he said: "You told me the past few months you have been teaching her. What have you taught her so far?"

"Legilimency and occlumency, she's most accomplished at those my Lord. I've also been trying to train her reflexes for duelling." Bellatrix answered eagerly.

"Trying to train her reflexes, Bellatrix?"

"Yes my Lord, she does fine if she has her wand out already or is expecting it, but dealing with an unexpected attack is still a bit of a problem. She has shown the ability to learn wandless magic though." Bellatrix added hastily seeing the disappointed look on the Dark Lord's face. "She can do a wandless shield charm. I'm sure I can teach her more if you give me more time, my Lord."

"Wandless magic?" he looked impressed; "Is this true Luenda? You can do a wandless shield charm?"

"My mum taught me." Luenda answered, a little embarrassed.

"Very well. Bellatrix you can teach her on wandless magic and the Dark Arts, it's about time she learns those as well. Rodolphus you will teach her how to duel, twice a week for the rest of the summer. Alecto you will start teaching her on various wards, once a week will do."

"My Lord," Bellatrix interrupted; "I have already started on teaching her those."

"Then things will progress a little faster when she's learning with Alecto, will they not?" Bellatrix visibly shrunk at those words. "I want to see you again after your sixteenth birthday, when you will be initiated." His attention was on Luenda again. "Those of you who will be teaching the girl are dismissed."

They left the room. Luenda was a little shaken by the experience and absolutely terrified of the Dark Lord, but felt it could have gone worse.

The moment the door closed behind them however Bellatrix and Rodolphus started fighting and as ever with Bellatrix it didn't take long for wands to be drawn and Rodolphus to be reduced to a sobbing mess. Although Luenda was used to Bellatrix' power and prestigious skill by now, she couldn't deny her quick victory over the man was a little unnerving to say the least. It made her realise that Bellatrix had always gone easy on her, even if it didn't feel that way. Alecto noticed the frightened look on Luenda's face and led her away from the two.

"You don't like violence, do you?" she asked kindly.

Luenda shook her head.

Alecto smiled and was just about to answer when Bellatrix appeared.

"Don't you dare come near my little girl!" she shrieked.

"Don't worry I wouldn't want to touch a child of yours if it was the most beautiful human being on the planet." Alecto sneered. "But as you don't have any children that won't be a problem, now will it?"

"You will stay AWAY from her, hear me?! She's my little girl and you're not corrupting her only to break her heart like you do to so many other girls!" Bellatrix screamed.

Luenda was thoroughly confused as to what Bellatrix was talking about.

"My, my, aren't you a little possessive about her?" Alecto cackled; "Decided that since your marriage isn't working out you'd try a girl?"

In the blink of an eye Bellatrix' wand was out. "I promise you Alecto, if you ever lay a finger on her I will kill you in the most slow and torturous way possible." She spoke in a deadly quiet voice that send shivers down Luenda's spine.


	9. Chapter 9

I don't own anything other than my OC.

 **Summer passing**

The next morning Luenda and Bellatrix walked into the Lestrange Manor. Luenda didn't like it much, the grounds surrounding the dark, gloomy looking house were unkempt and its dark appearance was mirrored inside. A number of portraits lined the dark grey walls, presumably of members belonging to the Lestrange family. The hall was lit by a large chandelier, but most of the candles seemed to have long since burned out never to be replaced. Their feet echoed loudly on the dark hardwood floor as they crossed the hallway to the sitting room, where they were greeted by Rodolphus and another man who looked very much like him, although he was slightly shorter and less muscular.

"How nice of you to visit your own home for a change, Bellatrix. This is like what? The second time you've been here now?" Rodolphus sneered.

"Shut up Rod, or do I have to hex you again? It would be my pleasure." Bellatrix retaliated.

"Ehm?" Luenda asked, looking confusedly from one to the other.

Rodolphus caught Luenda's confused expression and said: "You never even told her you were married, Bella? Are you really that ashamed of me? Well then, don't let me keep you."

"And leave my little girl here with you and your filthy brother? I don't think so Roddie." Bellatrix retorted in a mock-loving tone.

"You really are protective of her aren't you? You know, if you had just let me touch you back when we were just married you could really have had a child of your own." Rodolphus mocked her.

"You know I don't want children. Especially not from filth like you." Bellatrix spat at her husband.

Rodolphus' brother watched the exchange with amusement, Luenda already wanted to get away from the place. Quite apart from disliking the argument going on between husband and wife she didn't like the feeling the house breathed. She was also slightly alarmed by the odd glint in the brothers' eyes when she had entered the house.

When finally they got down to training Rodolphus made it a point to constantly comment on how little useful spells Luenda knew, which annoyed Bellatrix to no end and she frequently made snide remarks to her husband. Resulting in more arguments. When Rodolphus sneered at her for the umpteenth time however Luenda had about enough of it, there was nothing constructive about his words and he had not even attempted to teach her a single spell so far, so how on earth was she to suddenly know more spells than before? She aimed a shrinking spell at Rodolphus' shoes followed, by a few quick flashes of light that looked impressive but really didn't do anything and an engorgement charm at his ankles. At first Rodolphus laughed at her, then he yelled in pain his shoes suddenly being far to small and tripped, due to his now unnaturally proportioned feet and ankles, landing face first between the weeds overgrowing the garden and losing his wand in the process. Luenda summoned it to her hand and gave him a haughty look worthy of Bellatrix herself, whom was currently dying with laughter.

"That's what you get for being disrespectful to my little girl now isn't it, Roddie?" she cackled; "She's much cleverer than you are, that's for sure."

"Shut up, Bellatrix." Rodolphus said, grinding his teeth. "And you," he pointed at Luenda, "give me back my wand. I swear you will regret this."

"Then why would I give you back your wand?" Luenda asked, stepping closer to Bellatrix.

"You insolent little brat! Give me back my wand NOW!" Rodolphus bellowed.

Luenda looked at Bellatrix, who held out her hand and gave the wand to Bellatrix. Rodolphus charged at her, ready to strike physically, but Bellatrix was much to quick for him. Before he had even taken two steps towards them she had him under one of her famous cruciatus curses with his own wand.

Dinner that evening was a subdued affair. Everything that had been said and done at the Lestrange Manor was finally sinking in for Luenda, meaning that she was lost in confused threats of thought all throughout dinner. Draco was sulking because Bellatrix had told him he had to learn occlumency in order to fulfil his mission properly and Narcissa was chewing her lip in worry. Only Bellatrix was looking her usual self, but Luenda knew that deep down she too was worried.

After dinner Bellatrix went off to give Draco his first occlumency lesson. Luenda felt for him, she knew he would come out of it with a terrible headache at the very least. Not to mention that the chances of him meeting Bellatrix' expectations were slim. That wasn't to say she didn't think Draco a sufficiently skilled wizard, but he let his pride get in the way sometimes making him think that just because he was a pureblood everything would come naturally to him.

Meanwhile Luenda had two options, she could go up to her bedroom and finally het some potion brewing done as she had been longing to get to that ever since she came back from Hogwarts or she could spend some time with Narcissa whom she had hardly seen let alone spoken to since Christmas. She decided on the latter of the two options, only going upstairs to retrieve a book so she'd have something to do, not knowing what to say to her foster mother. Narcissa, watched her for a moment, then said:

"You don't have to keep me company if you don't want to."

"I do want to." Luenda replied.

Narcissa stared at her, she had gotten the impression the girl didn't like her very much and had only put up with her over Christmas because she forced herself on her. Then Bellatrix came along and she had stolen away the girl completely.

"I'm angry with you for not taking care of your sister when she needed you and I know I should have spend some time with you over the Easter holidays, but that doesn't mean I don't like you." Luenda explained.

Narcissa's eyes suddenly filled with tears and she jumped up to envelop Luenda in a hug. They sat in comfortable silence for a while after that, listening to Draco's angry shouts that echoed around the manor every so often, always followed by Bellatrix' derisive laughter.

"He doesn't really like her, does he?" Luenda asked out of the blue.

Narcissa shook her head. "No, he sees her much the same way Lucius does and they've hated each other since they were children." She explained.

"Do you like her?" Luenda inquired.

Narcissa thought about that for a moment. "Most of the time, yes. Our parents were horrible towards us when we were young, but Bellatrix would always stand up for Andromeda and me, often taking our punishments or being blamed for the things we did. She could get extremely angry over little things though."

"Yes, she told me she used to set your robes on fire." Luenda said.

"Yes, back then that was one of her favourite ways to get back at us. As we grew older and she learned more hexes on us however her ways of getting back at us became more inventive and cruel. And then the day after her 16th birthday she joined the Death Eaters..." Narcissa's voice trailed away.

"Your parents weren't okay with that?" Luenda asked.

"Yes and no. On the one hand they were proud for her to join the movement that would rid the world of mudbloods and other filth, on the other Bellatrix was a girl and girls should do as their parents told them. But Bellatrix always did whatever she wanted to, so when our parents betrothed her to Rodolphus Lestrange, a boy she had hated for years because he had once beat her in a duel, she joined the Death Eaters in an attempt to get away from him."

"How would joining the Death Eaters help with that?" Luenda asked, confused.

"According to her the Dark Lord had promised to dispose of him if she did something for him." Narcissa answered.

"Like Draco now has to do something for him so he will release Lucius?"

Narcissa nodded.

"Then how did they end up married? Did she fail?"

"No, she succeeded, but Rodolphus joined only a few days later because he had heard she had too. He proved to as much of an asset as she was, so there was no question of him killing Rodolphus anymore. Bellatrix was led to the altar at wandpoint." A tear slid down her face at these last words.

Luenda was silent, what else was left to say? Bellatrix had been forced to marry a man she hated, her parents had never shown her any love and her sisters probably never dared to show her any either because of their parents, resulting in Bellatrix' unspoken but rather obvious belief they didn't like her either. The only reason Bellatrix lived here instead of with her husband was most likely that she felt certain Narcissa at least would not raise objections out of fear of being hexed like in their youth.

After a long pause Narcissa asked: "Why do you want to know all this?"

"I like her and she isn't likely to tell me any of this for herself, is she?" Luenda answered.

"No, but I thought she taught you legilimency?" Narcissa asked, a little puzzled by this reply.

"It's rude to delve into someone's mind without permission and she's a good occlumens, so it wouldn't do me much good anyway." Luenda shrugged.

Her first lesson with Alecto the next day was more than a little awkward with Bellatrix watching them like a hawk. Alecto seemed reluctant to come near her or even look her in the eyes, no doubt this was because of the threat Bellatrix had given her only two days ago, and Luenda had a very hard time concentrating on wards, both because of the extremely tense atmosphere in the room and the mere presence of Alecto. For the life of her Luenda couldn't understand why the woman made her feel this way, as though she was going to be sick at any time, but at the same time nothing had ever seemed as important as impressing the woman.

At the end of the day Luenda was as glad to return to Malfoy Manor as she had been the day before. A feeling that didn't change as the weeks progressed. Lessons with Rodolphus continued to be an absolute nightmare as the man kept commenting on her lacking knowledge of offensive spells, but didn't bother to teach het any. She didn't dare use her quick wit to beat him anymore either, not after the way he had responded the first time, nor did she dare cheek or defy him anymore as he was now ruthless in his treatment of her. Not that he had been nice to begin with, but at least he'd refrained from using actually lethal curses on her. More than once Bellatrix had had to interfere when she wasn't quick enough to block or duck them. He also had taken to sneer at her that she was as weak as her mother, afraid of wielding power. How he even knew her mum was a complete mystery to Luenda, but the insults did serve to teach her the one thing she learned from him all summer: how to keep her face devoid of all emotion. Not just focused and serious, but really just completely blank.

Lessons with Alecto meanwhile remained as awkward as it had been the first time and the only time she actually learned anything about wards anymore was when she read up on them for herself. This slowed her learning process down considerably, but as she was simply unable to concentrate while in Alecto's presence it would have to do.

Learning with Bellatrix had become increasingly frustrating too. Learning Dark Magic was all very well, but nearly all of those spells were meant to harm others, exactly the one thing Luenda was unwilling to do. While wandless magic was simply a slow process in itself. Things would start progressing more quickly in this field as soon as she mastered more spells, but so far the only spell she could perform wandlessly remained the shield charm. Useful, especially considering Rodolphus' lessons, but it wasn't nearly good enough for Bellatrix of course, so she was often punished for it. Still, Luenda preferred it over her lessons with the other two Death Eaters and Hogwarts, where everything reminded her of Luna.

Yet the end of the summer holidays would be here soon and as September 1st drew ever nearer Narcissa tried to get both teenagers to join her for a trip to Diagon Alley. To everyone's surprise Draco didn't object to the trip, although he didn't appreciate being chaperoned by his mother.

"Mother I'm 16, I can manage doing my own shopping." He whined.

"Yes, Cissy, stop babying him so much." Bellatrix agreed.

"You will not go alone." Narcissa stated in a tone that indicated there was no point in trying to argue the case. "And you," she turned angrily to Bellatrix, "will not tell me how to raise my son. You don't even know what it's like to have children."

This last bit angered both Luenda and Bellatrix, causing them both to start shouting at Narcissa at the same time.

"Enough!" Narcissa bellowed, finally managing to make herself heard. "Draco, Luenda, you will both be ready tomorrow morning at 9 to go to Diagon Alley and that's final!"

"No." Luenda answered coldly.

"Don't you dare defy me young lady, it was only too good of my husband to take you, and I promise you now that I will hand you right back to the ministry if you don't listen. Do I make myself clear?" Narcissa hissed.

Luenda paled at the notion.

"Don't you even think about doing anything of the sort, Cissy!" Bellatrix screamed, beside herself with rage.

"And what will you do about it, Bella? She's not your responsibility." Narcissa said coldly to her sister.

"Nor is she yours from what I understand." Bellatrix cackled.

"No, she's Lucius'. But as we happen to be married and he's in jail she does fall to me at the moment."

"Don't fight, please?" Luenda whispered, but it went unnoticed as Bellatrix started shouting again.

Luenda ran up the stairs to her bedroom, locking the door behind her. All she had wanted to say was that she'd place an order at _Flourish and Blott's_ because she didn't want to go at all. And now, because of her the two sisters were fighting for the umpteenth time this summer, not to mention Narcissa's promise to hand her back to the ministry. Would Narcissa make good upon that, or was it an empty threat? And if she did go through with it, would she ever see Bellatrix again?

Luenda remained shut up in her room for the rest of the evening, but made sure to be ready at the set time the next morning. She wasn't the only one looking mutinous at the breakfast table though, Draco too was clearly unhappy about the arrangement and Narcissa was glaring daggers at her sister, who for some reason looked also ready go out.

"For the last time, Bellatrix you are not coming with us." Narcissa stated.

"And who's going to stop me?" Bellatrix sneered.

Luenda sighed, apparently the sisters were still arguing.

"I told you, you can't come. You can't show yourself in public, they'll throw you back in Azkaban." Narcissa said exasperated.

"Can't she alter her appearance then?" Luenda interjected, hoping to stop the argument before it blew out of proportion again.

"Yes, some polyjuice should do it. No-one will be able to recognise me." Bellatrix beamed.

"And who would you be turning into then? It's not like we have hairs of random people to spare and you can't change into any of us either, it would look too suspicious." Narcissa countered.

"I was thinking of glamour spells, actually." Luenda said in a small voice.

They all stared at her for a moment and after some more bickering it was decided that Bellatrix could take Luenda to do her shopping, mostly because Narcissa was tired of arguing with her sister.

About ten minutes later Luenda was looking at an older version of herself. As they already happened to have the same dark curls cascading down their backs they had decided Bellatrix' best disguise would be to look as though she might be a long lost, unknown relative of Luenda. Truth be told, there wasn't too much to do about the rest of Bellatrix' appearance either, they quickly found out they had about the same built already, so apart from a few changes to her face and Bellatrix changing into one of Luenda's dresses rather than her signature black corset they left it the way it was.

Luenda stared at Bellatrix, who was currently picking at the bloodred dress she was wearing. The only thing that didn't make her feel as though she was looking into an aging-mirror were Bellatrix' dark eyes as opposed to her own hazel ones. Her eyes, that apart from her curls, that weren't even light brown like her mother's, were the only things she had inherited from her mum and here Bellatrix stood, looking more likely to be her mother than her real mother had ever done.

Luenda and Bellatrix finished their shopping as quickly as possible when they reached Diagon Alley. Thankfully Luenda hadn't grown at all, so she didn't need new robes, which saved a lot of time. The only places they really needed to visit was _Flourish and Blott's_ and the apothecary. Luenda much preferred the apothecary in Knockturn Alley ever since het first visit there though and it didn't take much persuasion to get Bellatrix to take her there instead. Bellatrix too preferred the shades and shops of Knockturn Alley, albeit for very different reasons.

Luenda was once again mesmerised by the most wondrous and interesting objects that were for sale in the dark alley. Bellatrix, who was positively thrilled at Luenda's fascination with the various Dark items and books, told her she could have whatever she liked. Luenda didn't need telling twice, although she stayed well away from all the cursed items put up for sale, she did select a book called _Awaken The Dark Inside You_ in the bookstore. Bellatrix couldn't have been more proud of her choice.

"Your daughter has fine taste, Madam." The store clerk said as they went to pay for the item. "She'll be a great witch when she grows up."

"Yes, she most certainly will be." Bellatrix said proudly.

Luenda found it difficult to keep the tears from forming as Bellatrix sounded exactly like her mum always did when she used to tell her she was proud of her. She forced herself to smile at the store clerk and they left.

Once outside Luenda couldn't hold back her tears anymore though and Bellatrix gave her a confused look.

"What are you crying about?" she asked.

"You." Luenda whispered through her sobs.

"What?" Bellatrix asked, even more confused.

"Y-you really sounded like mum back there." Luenda choked out; "And you really look like you could be m-my mum."

Bellatrix was stunned. After a moment or two she grabbed Luenda by the elbow and apparated them both back to the manor, it wouldn't do the girl any good to be seen crying in public and like before she had absolutely no idea how to deal with it.

Draco and Narcissa arrived a little while later. The sounds of Narcissa berating her son for slipping off to some unknown destination travelling up the stairs where Luenda and Bellatrix sat in the girl's bedroom as usual. Luenda, now calmed down again, reading the book and firing a constant stream of questions about its contents at Bellatrix who answered them with great amusement.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N** As I wrote this while babysitting and was constantly interupted, this chapter needed a reread and some fixes, such as actually finishing the last sentence, which have been done now.

I don't own anything other than my OC

 **Going back**

As Luenda had anticipated the train ride to Hogwarts was not enjoyable. She caught s glimpse of Luna scampering of with Neville and the boy who's face was so well-known she couldn't pretend she didn't recognise him: Harry Potter. Luenda sighed and tried to find a compartment that didn't include Draco and his gang. Seriously Crabbe and Goyle were so daft she couldn't understand how they ended up being his friends in the first place. Probably because they were stupid enough to go along with whatever he said, she mused. Then there was Zabini, a very handsome looking boy who unfortunately was also very full of himself. And lastly there was Pansy Parkinson, who tried to spend her every waking moment by his side. Luenda merely thought her shallow and was unable to see why Draco liked her, she wasn't even good looking for Merlin's sake!

Then again, Alecto was about as plain a woman you would find as well she thought. Yet she couldn't focus on anything other than the older woman if she happened to be anywhere near her. But that was different, Luenda told herself, she merely looked up to Alecto, while Draco actually fancied Pansy.

At last she found herself a compartment that wasn't filled with glaring students. Something that proved rather more difficult than she had expected, after all she had been teaching many students indiscriminately last year. Yet here they were, shooting daggers at her because it just so happened she was a Slytherin. Luenda heaved a sigh and settled herself in the compartment with a book, thinking back on the first time she had ridden the train. She had been reading back then too and just like it had happened last year a group of girls entered the compartment a few minutes later. Mercifully Susan Bones was not among them this time around. This lot she knew were fellow Slytherins as their faces were all vaguely familiar.

"Hi, mind if we sit with you?" asked a girl with shoulder length blond hair.

Luenda nodded.

"You don't remember, do you?"

"Remember what?" Luenda asked blankly.

"At the end of last year, I asked you to help me with non-verbal spellwork." The girl responded.

"Oh yeah." Luenda responded vaguely.

"So? Will you help me?" the girl asked, a little impatient.

"yeah sure, ehm... how about Saturday morning around ten?" Luenda suggested.

"Sounds good." Said one of the other girls, who looked as though she doubted any fifth year could be helpful to them.

They started chatting among themselves after that. Luenda listened to their holiday stories for a while, then turned back to her reading.

They were nearly at Hogsmeade station when the girl who had looked so sceptical at Luenda before asked:

"Why are you always reading? You look like some kind of Ravenclaw."

"I enjoy it." Luenda replied simply.

"Yes, but why? I mean... it's not like you have any parents left that can expect anything from you anymore." She sneered.

"Who said I'm doing schoolwork?" Luenda asked, irked by the comment about her parents.

"Viviane, be nice to her." The blond girl said to her friend.

"Why? She's only a fifth year." The girl named Viviane responded.

"Because for one thing she's a Slytherin, so she's one of us. For another we actually need her help in order to pass our N.E.W.T.s in case you hadn't noticed. And lastly she's the foster child of Lucius Malfoy, you don't want to mess with that family." The blonde said, quickly losing patience.

Luenda didn't hear the rest of their bickering anymore, honestly she had become so used to hearing Bellatrix do the same with pretty much everyone over the summer tuning it out had become second nature. But the blond girl had called her 'one of us', of course this only meant they were in the same house, but it was still a great feeling to really belong somewhere. And suddenly the prospect of spending the next ten months at Hogwarts didn't seem so daunting anymore.

Luenda didn't fully understand how it had happened, but after leaving the train she had ended up taking the same carriage as the 7th year girls and she was somehow sitting with them at the Slytherin house table in the Great Hall now, watching as the new first years got sorted. Luenda thought back to last year, when she had been standing there among all those little kids, feeling equally nervous but also incredibly out of place. And then her name had been called and the Sorting Hat had talked to her. It had tried to tell her Hufflepuff would be a good fit as she needed a friend, then it had agreed with her that Ravenclaw wouldn't be a good fit and finally placed her in Slytherin. She thought back to the train ride, when Viviane had said she looked like some kind of Ravenclaw because she was always reading. Was that true? Did she really look out of place because of that? She decided she didn't, loads of Slytherins studied a lot. Most of their parents wanted them to come out top of their year, so they had to work hard whether they liked it or not.

As the feast began Luenda mostly listened to the seventh years talking among themselves. From this she learned the blonde girl's name was Aiva, she already knew the annoying one was called Viviane and the third girl, who she noticed hardly spoke a word unless she was asked a question, was called Kathryn. A bit further along the table Luenda noticed her own classmates, who had never given her the time of day before, staring admiringly at her. She mentally rolled her eyes at them, so now she was sitting with 7th years she suddenly was good enough for them? Or was it because their parents were Death Eaters and had told them the Dark Lord was spending time on her? Or rather have others do it for him... To her it didn't matter either way, she wasn't going to become a Death Eater and she wasn't going to befriend people who didn't want her for who she was.

About halfway through the feast they saw someone nearly running through the doors and who else could it be but Harry sodding Potter. The boy who was the entire bloody reason Lucius was in Azkaban and Draco was being forced to become a Death Eater. Luenda really did roll her eyes at the sight, knowing full well he would hardly get told off for being so late. If it had been a Slytherin, he or she would have been in serious trouble with their parents and a detention on top. But there was no favouritism at Hogwarts at all... Feeling highly resentful towards the place Luenda turned her attention to picking out a dessert.

"Something wrong, Luenda?" Kathryn asked, quite suddenly.

"Potter." She shrugged.

"Don't tell me you've got an eye on _famous darling_ Potter." Viviane sneered.

Luenda glared at her. Seriously, how on earth could she think such a thing? Was she as stupid as she looked? If so she'd have a job teaching the older girl non-verbal spells.

"Yeah, he's a stupid show off." Kathryn answered, "But the Dark Lord will finish him soon enough."

Luenda nodded and tried to smile at her, but it might have come of more as a grimace as her insides squirmed at the thought of someone being murdered for no apparent reason at all.

"Didn't you get to meet the Dark Lord over the summer?" Aiva asked; "My father told me." She explained at Luenda's stunned expression.

She nodded again.

"Really? What was it like?" Viviane asked in an awed voice.

Luenda shrugged. "He didn't torture me, I suppose that's something." She said eventually, as telling them the truth was out of the question with another Death Eater's daughter listening and in any case she didn't want to tell Viviane she was scared anyway.

"My father told me he arranged for you to be taught by some of his best Death Eaters." Aiva said in amazement.

Luenda nodded, looking at her plate rather than any of the girls.

"Wow." Aiva and Viviane said in unison, Kathryn was silent. Luenda had a strong suspicion Kathryn wasn't a very big fan of the Dark Lord either.

As their conversation fell silent Dumbledore arose to announce the start of term notices. Luenda payed attention just long enough to applaud Professor Snape getting to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts this year (word had it he had wanted to teach the subject for a long time) and to know that the new teacher, who was a fat bald man with a very large moustache and was called Professor Slughorn, would be taking over potions classes. After that she took out her book and started to read, not caring about his story about a boy named Tom Riddle. She didn't know anyone with that name and whoever it was was long gone from Hogwarts anyway so she didn't care.

Luenda's first lesson the next day was Defence Against the Dark Arts. Preferring not to have Professor Snape's commenting on her non-verbal spellwork she took a seat in a back corner of the class, only to almost topple back off her chair when all her Slytherin classmates tried to take the seat next to her like she was some kind of celebrity. It was rather unhelpful that they would have these lessons with the Gryffindors this year, as the only two students of that house had already taken up a table together and were currently scowling at her. In twos and threes the rest of the Gryffindors entered the classroom chatting amicably amongst each other. The disruption at Luenda's table unfortunately wasn't solved until Professor Snape walked in.

"Settle down." He called shortly.

The Slytherins all hurried into seats as the Gryffindors fell silent. It was a little odd Luenda thought, usually there was no real need for Professor Snape to call the class to order.

"As you have had four teachers in this subject so far it will be a near miracle if all of you manage to scrape an O.W.L. in this subject. However we will be preparing for your upcoming exams as well as possible." he said as the class listened with rapt attention. "Bear in mind that if you wish to continue the subject I will be demanding an outstanding in your O.W.L. So you will need to work hard if you wish to stand a chance at continuing."

The class was completely silent, although a fair amount of shifting around now took place between the Gryffindor students.

"Today we will start of by practicing your duelling skills. If and when you are attacked by a Dark witches or wizards you will need to be able to avoid, deflect or block their spells. You will therefore pair up now. One partner will attempt to jinx the other, while the other will attempt to repel the jinx either by blocking the jinx or using a counter spell to deflect it."

There was a scraping of chairs as the class divided itself into pairs and took their positions opposite one another. Within seconds the room was full of shouts. Most people were fairly good at repelling their opponent's spells, Luenda's opponent unfortunately quickly looked a little worse for wear. Thanks to her natural ability to fire spells in very quick succession and her training over the summer, not to mention her lessons with Bellatrix before that, it took her about two minutes to have her classmate on the floor covered in angry boils after blinding her with a simple lumos maxima.

Walking over to them Professor Snape nodded approvingly at Luenda and set the other girl straight again. When most of the class was either standing victorious over their classmates or lying on the floor, mostly stunned, Professor Snape called the class to order again.

"As Miss Sarkany was the quickest to triumph over her opponent followed by Miss Weasley they will now face each other. The rest of you will be paying close attention to their techniques. You will find that duels are not necessarily won by sheer power, quick wit and the ability to anticipate your opponent's next move are often essential to winning a duel."

The Weasley-girl smirked, obviously thinking she already had this in the bag.

"STUPIFY!" she screamed.

Luenda took a step to the left, easily avoiding her spell. It was her turn to smirk now, noticing the bewildered expression on the other girl's face. With a lazy flick of her wand she pushed her roughly back into the wall.

Ginny tried to get up with a grimace of pain, but before she could do so she saw 5 spells coming her way. Panicking, she screamed and pulled her arms over her head, completely forgetting she could raise a shield charm. Unbeknownst to her however only one of the lights currently shooting in her direction was an actual spell, a cutting hex to be exact. The spell hit right on target: her wand hand. With a yelp of pain Ginny dropped her wand. Luenda easily summoned it to her hand and walked over to the Weasley-girl. Fixing up the cut on her hand with another lazy flick of her wand, she extended her own to help her back op and handed her her wand back, only to receive a scowl in return.

Luenda shrugged and walked back over to the other side of the classroom where the rest of the Slytherins were seated at their desks.

"For homework a foot long essay on how to use simple and seemingly useless spells to your advantage in a duel and an equally long one on the shield charm." Professor Snape concluded the lesson.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N** I'm so sorry I didn't get to update any sooner! The dance season is in full swing again and I'm just having so much practice that I hardly had any time to write and the few moments I had in was either too tired or didn't have any inspiration left... guess all of that inspiration went into my dancing the last couple of weeks. But here it is at last! It didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to, but at least it's there. So I hope it's not too bad and you can still enjoy it.

I don't own anything other than my OC.

 **Chapter 11**

Taking Potions lessons with Professor Slughorn was... a nightmare. It wasn't that the man was incompetent, because he was obviously very skilled in his field, but he wasn't very interested in teaching as far as Luenda could tell. After a few initial questions on the draft of peace, which he said was likely to come up in their O.W.L. he started talking about famous ex-students of his. Not liking the subject of the class most students encouraged him to keep talking so that by the end of the lesson they had learned absolutely nothing.

Care of Magical Creatures wasn't any fun anymore either. Hagrid was still an oaf and now she didn't even have Luna for company anymore. Even worse than simply not having her as a friend anymore was that she was still avoiding like the plague and when they were forced to be in close proximity of one another, like in shared classes, kept throwing dirty looks Luanda's way. Luenda tried to ignore this, but although she kept her face carefully blank every time she noticed this, wanted nothing more than to cry over it.

The loss of her friend had been bearable over the summer because she had been kept so busy, but now it was like being doused in ice water all of a sudden. She just wished she could make it up to Luna, but knew she couldn't. After all she hadn't really done anything wrong, she simply liked someone that Luna didn't. In fact Luenda had a strong suspicion that Luna wouldn't approve of her liking of someone else she'd met recently either... and so Care of Magical Creatures crept by ever so slowly.

Exhausted Luenda crawled into bed that Friday evening, only just remembering she was supposed to teach those three seventh years about nonverbal spells tomorrow morning. She groaned inwardly, wondering how best to explain the subject. The more she had done it the more she had realised what her mum had always meant when she told her that magic wasn't about incantations, it was about intentions. Incantations were only there to help. Luenda snorted at that thought, she couldn't honestly agree that incantations were helpful in any way. They just offered a lot of time waste to study and perfect them. Honestly, magic had been getting so much easier since she had learned to feel it rather than thinking up the correct words, which she wasn't any good at anyway.

Then it suddenly hit her. That was it! She had to teach them how to feel their magic and everything else would come of its own accord! Surely every pureblood would be able to do that, magic has been in our blood for centuries for a reason after all.

Saturday morning dawned and she took her three fellow Slytherins with her to the unused classroom she had claimed last year. It looked exactly how it had done when she left it, except perhaps a little dusty from lack of use and no cleaning over the summer. With a pang she thought of how she has first started using this room with Luna to help her with potions.

"Wow, how did you know about this room?" Viviane said in awed tones.

"Stumbled across it" Luenda mumbled untruthfully, in fact she and Luna had deliberately searched for a room in a remote corner of the school to get away from the prying eye of Umbridge last year and this room had been absolutely perfect.

Luenda pointed at some chairs at one of the tables for them to sit down and started to explain all about feeling the magic swirl inside you and focusing on what you wanted to happen instead of the words. She also advised them to keep it simple for now, because it was their first attempt. Harder spells would definitely be possible, but only with time and practice. There was a reason you started out learning only simple spells at first and it didn't have anything to do with magical power, because you're born with that. It just lays dormant inside of you until you become practiced enough to tap into that power.

When they left for lunch Luenda was not at all surprised that none of them had been making any progress, she hadn't expected them to either. Sensing your magic at first was a lot harder than it sounded after all, because it was the complete opposite of what you were taught here at Hogwarts, as she had experienced last year. Viviane was disgruntled about her lack of progress and muttered something that sounded like "Waste of time, could have spent my time actually learning this shit."

Luenda decided to spend the rest of her weekend relaxing a little. She wrote a letter to Bellatrix about her first week back, only to realise that all post was being checked, so a letter to a known Death Eater would never make it out of the castle. Not to mention that it would give Bellatrix' location away to the ministry, which was about the last thing she wanted. With a sigh she had resigned to put the letter in her trunk, she would keep writing though, she'd just have to find another way of getting the letters to Bellatrix and if she really couldn't find a way she'd give them to her over the Christmas holidays.

A note with a silly pink ribbon arrived during her second week back. Confused Luenda opened it.

 _I, Professor H. Slughorn would like to invite you to a dinner party this Friday evening around 7 in my office. Please let me know if the time and date are convenient to you._

 _Best regards,_

 _H. Slughorn_

Luenda's first instinct told her to simply toss the note into the fire, but upon reflection decided it couldn't hurt to check it out. She could always walk back out or revoke any possible future invitations if she didn't like it.

When she entered Slughorn's office that Friday after struggling through another abysmal week she noticed it looked larger than the regular teacher's office. A couple of other students were already seated there, some of which she recognised because they were fellow Slytherins, but most looked foreign to her. Luenda stood in the doorway for a moment, unsure of where to sit. Ginny Weasley was there and though she didn't have anything against the girl personally she had the feeling the girl didn't particularly like her, whether because of her house or because she beat her so easily during Defence the previous week she wasn't sure, probably a bit of both she thought. Close to Ginny was a girl from Draco's year she was pretty sure was called Hermione Granger and was friendly with Harry Potter, she also understood the girl was a muggle-born. Definitely not there then Luenda decided, Bellatrix would kill her if she ever got close to a muggle-born and she held no desire to sit next to someone who was close to Harry Potter, the boy who basically send Lucius to Azkaban last year and absolutely ruined her friendship with Luna. Then there was Blaise Zabini, a good looking guy, who was also a year ahead of her and sorted into Slytherin. So she could at least be sure it was okay to sit next to him, except that she didn't like Blaise at all because he was so full of himself. In the end she sat down between a Gryffindor boy she didn't know and another fellow Slytherin boy whom she recognised, but didn't know the name of.

Over dinner, which was excellent, Slughorn introduced everyone present to each other and asked a couple of questions. Luenda listened and noticed everyone there was either related to someone famous or were talented in some way or another. Luenda wondered briefly how Hermione and Ginny had ended up there. She supposed Ginny had fair duelling skills, but Hermione? What was that girl actually good at? After just listening to her this one time Luenda already realised she was a waste of time unless you were interested in muggles, which she most certainly was not. Not that she had anything against muggles, but she didn't care for them either. At last Slughorn turned his attention on her and she felt slightly nervous.

"Miss Sarkany, you have already shown great skill at potion making during my classes and Professor Snape tells me you're not a bad duellist either." Slughorn spoke fondly. "But word also has it you only came here last year, so that begs the question where you were taught before and by whom?"

"My mum home-schooled me, I've also had help from some other people, but I'd rather not get into that." Luenda responded.

"Home-schooled?" Slughorn asked, "Well your mother certainly seems to have taught you well then. But rumour has it she died last year. It was a bit of a tragedy was it not?" he said as though they were talking about the weather.

Luenda nodded, not liking his casual tone at all.

Slughorn looked at her. He must have realised her resentment towards him, because he didn't ask her about anything else and moved on to the Gryffindor boy next to her. His name turned out to be Cormac Mclaggen and he had no trouble boasting about his connections with several high ranked people within the wizarding world and telling everyone what a great keeper he was. Luenda decided that if she was ever invited to something like this again and stupid enough to accept she would stay as far away from this boy as she possibly could.

Several weeks later Luenda had been stupid enough to accept more of Slughorn's invitations, even though she hated them. At least she got to meet interesting people as the Professor often brought and introduced some old students of his that were now famous. It was also an easy way for Luenda to make it appear as though she had 'friends', even though she couldn't truthfully say she cared about any of the other members there. She also missed her Sunday remedial potions dearly, teaching non-verbal magic to three seventh years, one of whom totally hated her for God knows what, was just not the same. Luna was still avoiding her and Luenda flatly refused to talk to the girls in her dorm any more then absolutely necessary. Added to the fact that she still hadn't managed to think of a way to send her now considerable stack of letters to Bellatrix Luenda felt life at Hogwarts had now reached an all time low.

Luenda wasn't the only one who seemed lonely and downcast lately though. She had noticed Draco had lost a lot of the swagger he had had at the start of term as well. He could often be seen brooding over something Luenda didn't know about or he would simply vanish for hours at a time. He also seemed more on edge than he usually was. Luenda wondered what job the Dark Lord had him do that caused this behaviour in Draco, it was highly unusual for him to hide himself away like that. Even more unusual was that he hardly ever spoke a word about Potter anymore. Not that Luenda minded him shutting up about the other boy. If anything it was a bit of a relief to her. She watched him for a while.

"What do you want?" Draco asked annoyed when he noticed this.

Luenda quirked an eyebrow.

"Quit staring at me." He snapped finally.

"Since when do you mind being looked at?" Luenda asked innocently.

"You're insufferable, you know that?" Draco huffed.

"And you're suffering." Luenda answered simply.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked surprised.

"It means something's wrong with you Draco." She replied rolling her eyes. "What does He have you do?"

"That's none of your business." The snappishness back in his voice.

"Fair enough. Why does it worry you?"

"Just because, okay?!"

"No it's not okay Draco. You're 16, your father is imprisoned and you look worse with every day passing. Tell me what's wrong right now." She said in a tone that allowed no room for argument.

"Who are you to tell me what to do?!" Draco replied angrily; "You're a year younger than me and you don't look too happy yourself. You can't tell me what to do!"

"Fine, how about I write Bellatrix about you talking that way to me?" she asked him sweetly.

"You can't. All manners of communication in and out of the castle are being watched." Draco hissed.

"Maybe I've found a way around that." Luenda replied haughtily.

Draco stared at her for a moment. "Fine," he said eventually, "but you have to promise not to say a word to anyone about it."

Luenda nodded and remained silent while Draco told he about his mission and how the Dark Lord had promised to get Lucius out of Azkaban if he succeeded. How He had told him he was chosen for an important mission and that he should feel proud. That he really was proud, but that things weren't going as he had expected and that he was scared because of it. Scared of what the Dark Lord would do to him and his mother if he failed.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N** So a really quick one after the long wait of the last! Hope you enjoy.

I don't own anything other than my OC.

 **A possessive potion**

"Auch!" Luenda exclaimed, being awoken by a stinging pain on her cheek. Opening her eyes she saw Tiri standing over her, her hand not quite withdrawn from having slapped her mistress across the face.

"Tiri is very sorry, Mistress. But Tiri has to wake Mistress." The elf said apologetically.

"Why? What's wrong?" Luenda whispered, rubbing her still stinging cheek.

"It's Miss Bellatrix, Mistress. Something is very wrong with Miss Bellatrix."

"Take me to her please." Luenda replied, worried what might be so wrong that Bellatrix would one: need her in the middle of the night and two: be at Sarkany Manor in the first place. Luenda had made it a point to have the estate warded so that it could only be reached by elf-apparition and she knew for a fact Bellatrix hated depending on the elves. Let alone being nice enough to them to have them obey her.

They appeared at the manor with a loud CRACK. Luenda immediately rushed towards Bellatrix' bedroom, as that would be the most logical place for Bellatrix to be at this late hour. To her surprise Bellatrix wasn't awake however, quite the contrary, she was fast asleep. Trashing about and screaming at the top of her voice, but asleep nonetheless. Rukk stood in a corner of the room, looking petrified. Tiri, who had followed her didn't look any better.

"Where is Turu?" Luenda asked Rukk, feeling something might be up with him and casting a silent calming spell over Bellatrix so she quieted down.

"I does not know Mistress. Turu left when Tiri went to fetch Mistress. Rukk stayed to keep an eye on Miss Bellatrix for you."

"Tiri, can you go and find your brother please? Keep him downstairs in the kitchen, I'll come as soon as I can."

The elf bowed deeply and disappeared with another loud CRACK.

"How long has she been like this Rukk?" Luenda asked the remaining elf.

"Since Mistress left for Hogwarts, Mistress." Rukk answered. "It has been getting worse every night Mistress, Tiri and Rukk have been watching over Miss for Mistress. But Tiri was scared tonight. Miss was screaming about the Dark Lord hurting Mistress."

Luenda nodded. "Can you tell me what she said exactly?" she asked after a moments thought.

"Something about the Dark Lord not hurting her little girl, Mistress. To punish Miss Bellatrix instead." Rukk replied. "Miss Bellatrix always calls Mistress little girl, so Tiri and Rukk thought..." his voice trailed away.

Luenda nodded again. "Does Turu disappear every time this happens?"

Rukk nodded vigorously. "Yes Mistress, Turu leaves every night. Tiri and Rukk does not know where."

"Thank you, Rukk. Do you think you can help Tiri with finding Turu and keeping him down in the kitchen for me? I'm going to wake Bellatrix up."

Rukk too bowed to Luenda and disappeared with a CRACK, though it was softer then when Tiri had disapparated. Luenda swallowed. Waking Bellatrix in the middle of the night was not going to be pretty and rousing her from a nightmare most certainly wasn't going to help matters. Slowly and deliberately she made her way over to the bed and tried to place a hand on Bellatrix' shoulder. Only to find that she couldn't touch her. This struck her as odd. She had been perfectly capable of placing that calming charm upon the woman only moments ago, which meant that there was no shield charm around her as this would have prevented any spell from reaching her as well. A ward perhaps? But why place a ward around herself that would prevent physical contact but allow spells to reach her? That didn't make any sense. Putting up any ward at all didn't make any sense to her. No-one knew how to reach the Manor in the first place. Apart from using a fidelius charm there was absolutely no way to protect it any better than it was now, Luenda had made sure of that.

She tried again and again she hit an invisible barrier just before she would actually reach Bellatrix' shoulder. Taking out her wand she performed a spell that would reveal any wards around the room. It was one of the spells Alecto had taught her over the summer. Nothing came up. So she was right, it couldn't be a ward. But then what was it if not a ward or a shield charm? She didn't get a chance to wonder any further however, because at that exact moment Bellatrix opened her eyes. Except, they weren't her eyes. Luenda just caught a glimpse of a pair of manic looking vibrant purple eyes before she was thrown onto the floor, her limbs flailing and screaming in agony.

It was pain as she had never experienced before. Although she had lost count of the times Bellatrix had used the cruciatus curse on her during her lessons, this was about a thousand times worse. Nothing could have prepared her. But just as suddenly as it had started, the pain stopped. Reduced to a sobbing mess, Luenda just had the clarity of mind to take notice of the fact that Bellatrix wasn't even carrying a wand and then everything went black.

It was a few hours before she came around again and that was also the first thing she noticed: although she had been unconscious, she did realise how much time had passed. Opening her eyes she looked straight into Bellatrix' dark, almost black ones, yet they still had that purple hue around the edge.

"Something is very wrong indeed." She muttered to which Bellatrix burst into tears.

"Are you alright? Please tell me you're alright." She cried.

Luenda stared, she had never seen Bellatrix act like this and it was unnerving to say the least.

"I'm... fine." She said at last. "Nothing a simple headache cure won't fix." She smiled cheekily. Then quickly stopped smiling, because it hurt. Perhaps it would take a little more than a headache cure after all. "What happened to you?" she asked, sitting up.

"I don't know." Bellatrix answered; "After you left for Hogwarts I started spending more time here, Cissy is always crying about Draco and there's nothing for me to do there with you gone anyway."

Luenda nodded to indicate she was listening.

"Well that's it. Why are you even here?" Bellatrix said a little annoyed.

"I know about the nightmares, Bellatrix. Tiri came for me tonight because you were screaming. Rukk told me you've been having them ever since the start of term. They're both frightened to death. What happened?" Luenda demanded.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Bellatrix snapped.

"Look in the mirror. Your eyes have a purple hue around them. It's not as obvious as it was a few hours ago when you first woke up and cursed me, without a wand mind you, but it's still there. Something is wrong with you and I want to know what it is."

Bellatrix just stared at her. "I don't know what you're talking about." She said eventually; "I'll admit I've been having nightmares lately, but it's nothing to worry about."

"Have you by any chance been trying out some of the potions in the lab?" Luenda asked, suddenly realising something.

"Yes, I've been taking one for the nightmares. It's not working, mind you." Bellatrix said in a bored sort of voice.

"What was it labelled?" Luenda asked, certain her worst fears would be confirmed.

"I don't know, it's a purple one." Bellatrix shrugged.

"None of the sleeping potions I've made are purple, Bellatrix." Luenda sighed. "Can you show me the bottle please?"

Bellatrix rummaged through nightstand drawer for a moment and drew out a vial with about a quarter of the exact shade of bright purple Bellatrix' eyes had been a few hours ago left in it. It was labelled _D7 TEST_. Luenda paled considerably at the sight of it.

"What?" Bellatrix asked.

"That's not a sleeping draught, that's one of potions from one of the Dark Arts books. It wasn't even specified what it does."

"I'll tell you what it doesn't do, helping you sleep." Bellatrix snarled.

"Actually, I think that's exactly what it does." Luenda replied softly. "I think it might take over during your sleep. I don't really understand exactly how it works, but I've been trying to find an antidote to it."

"What do you mean you've been trying to find an antidote?" Bellatrix asked suspiciously.

"Well... not knowing exactly what it does, I haven't found one yet." Luenda answered apologetically.

"What?!" Bellatrix screamed incredulously. "You mean to tell me I can't go to sleep until you find an antidote to your own poison? You better get a move on then little girl, I'm not about to go without sleep just because you fed me some kind of weird poison that somehow possesses me in my sleep!"

"I didn't feed you anything." Luenda said defensively. "Nor did I invent that potion."

"Yes well, at least label them properly then! How was I supposed to know what it was with you using only letters and numbers?!" Bellatrix shrieked.

"The ones labelled with an S are sleeping draughts. D stands for Dark Arts, P for poison, A for antidote and H for healing. The numbers are simply the order in which I made them. Every P and most D's have an A with the same number."

"So glad you tell me now." Bellatrix sneered. "If you hadn't just come about after I don't even know what happened to you I swear you would be under the cruciatus curse like you've never been before. Merlin knows you deserve it."

Luenda glared at her for a moment, then went pale again. "You mean you really don't remember anything?"

"No. I thought we just covered that part." She snarled.

Suddenly Tiri's and Rukk's fear made a lot more sense to Luenda. It also made more sense for Tiri to come and fetch her now. Surely something as simple as a nightmare would not have caused Tiri to come over in the middle of the night, but being tortured like that for weeks on end would. Something else clicked as well. It was the potion that had prevented her from waking Bellatrix. That must be why Tiri had come now and not sooner, this must have been the first time she had tried to wake Bellatrix as well and after finding out that she couldn't she must have apparated straight to Hogwarts.

" _S2_ should help with the nightmares. 2 drops every night about half an hour before you go to bed. If in a week there's no improvement try _S8_ , one drop right before you go to sleep. Don't combine them and if neither helps send Tiri or Rukk to me. I'm going to take this and I'll send you the antidote as soon as I find it." Luenda said solemnly. "Oh and maybe it's best if you indeed stay here during the night. It's a rather painful experience for those who come near you." She added with a grimace.

Downstairs in the kitchen Rukk and Tiri were fighting with all their might to keep Turu from fleeing.

"Mistress." They all said in unison, bowing.

"Tiri, Rukk, go take care of yourselves please. You know where to find any necessary potions if you need them. Then take some rest and please don't go anywhere near Bellatrix anymore when she's sleeping."

Both elves thanked her, bowed again and left the kitchen.

"Turu, I'd like to talk to you for a moment."

"Of course, what does Mistress require?" the elf replied in an overly polite tone of voice.

"To know where you disappear to every night." Luenda said.

"Turu is being a good house-elf Mistress, he is not disappearing anywhere."

"You most certainly won't be anymore. I'm going to say goodbye to Bellatrix, then you will take me back to Hogwarts and after that you will remain in your room until I return. We will talk again then." Luenda told him and went upstairs again.

Back at Hogwarts Luenda checked her watch to see she had only half an hour left before she had to get up again. With a sigh she decided it was best not to go back to bed but to take a quick shower and start on one of the essays she had planned to complete today. Merlin knew she wouldn't do much of it later. She was already tired and she still had her classes to complete. Not to mention that she had to talk to Professor Snape about finding an antidote for that wretched potion, the remains of which now rested in her pocket.

As she had expected Luenda could hardly concentrate on her classes that day, earning her quite a few scoldings and disappointed looks from her teachers. If only she could tell them, she thought, but she knew she couldn't. She wasn't really allowed to leave Hogwarts just like that and she didn't want it found out that she had found a way to escape the castle if she needed to. She also realised that if she could leave and enter the castle unnoticed through elf-apparition it was likely she could also ask them to transport letters back and forth without being intercepted. So late that evening when everyone had gone to bed and she had finally managed to complete her essays, even though everything looked more like a blurry haze to her, she whispered "Tiri?"

A loud CRACK resounded and the elf stood before her, bowing deeply. "Yes Mistress?"

Luenda was glad she had chosen to call for the elf in her own dungeon room rather than wait in the common room, because she was sure her squeaky voice and the loud noise of her appearance would have woken the entire house if she had.

"Can you take these home for me please?" she asked giving her the stack of letters. "Give them to Bellatrix tomorrow morning when she wakes up."

The little elf nodded in confirmation and with a second loud CRACK she disapparated again.

Luenda smiled to herself, she had finally found a way to communicate with Bellatrix without risk of interception. But she was also exhausted and figured it would be too much of a risk to return to the common room now. The castle was constantly being patrolled now that the Dark Lord had chosen to move into the open, so there was zero to no chance she would make it back without being seen. With a sigh she concentrated one last moment to transfigure one of the tables into a nice soft bed and went to sleep.

 **A/N** About those purple eyes: I have absolutely no idea where they came from, but yesterday I just saw them before me. Only that pair of eyes, it gave me the creeps and I don't know why I saw them, I just did and it didn't make any sense to me. However they gave me some inspiration and I was up about half the night incorporating them properly into the story. I mean... it could use some action, could it not? :-P And I can totally see Bellatrix messing around with a some potions without informing herself properly first, after all she is more of a doer than a thinker.


End file.
